jung

Team seems flat....nobody is getting out of the box. Gee its a HR...gee its a foul ball. BS...run for God sake. I know they hate this place. But you have to play the games on the schedule. Oh by the way boys, you are 1-5 so far. So NO...nobody is going to lay down just because you throw your mitts out of the dugout onto the field.

Here are the lineups. Wonder what our Jack-in-the-box rotation has for us tonight. Gotta' score some runs in this mausoleum. 1. Mookie Betts ® RF 2. Andrew Benintendi (L) LF 3. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 4. J.D. Martinez ® DH 5. Mitch Moreland (L) 1B 6. Eduardo Nunez ® 2B 7. Brock Holt (L) SS 8. Blake Swihart (S) C 9. Jackie Bradley Jr. (L) CF 1. Robbie Grossman (S) LF 2. Matt Chapman ® 3B 3. Stephen Piscotty ® RF 4. Khris Davis ® DH 5. Kendrys Morales (S) 1B 6. Jurickson Profar (S) 2B 7. Marcus Semien ® SS 8. Ramon Laureano ® CF 9. Nick Hundley ® C

Somebody got the game thread for tonight (Wednesday)?

Sale's FB actually started out at low 90's in Oakland....91, topping out at 92 unless I missed a 93 as Fangraphs has his average at FB average at 91.6. Then that actually fell of to 88! So I don't think he was trying to throw 88. He sure as heck was not trying to throw 95 or 96 either. Actually Sale's velo was down for all the pitches he is throwing which makes sense. Rarely does just the FB velo fall off. It is just the most obvious one. The one we are always looking at. Sale is not throwing as many FB's as he was at the start of his career (discounting his first season as 60% FB's seems a number that was never sustainable for him) and he is nowhere near his normal FB velocity. In fact over the two starts of 2019, its the lowest average FB velo of his career. At least according to the Fangraphs stats which I think come from Brooks Baseball's pitchfx, he is off about 5 mph on each of his pitches. Sale is throwing way more Changeups than ever before (the pitch de jur of this 5 year period for all starters) and almost no two seams (the disappearing pitch of this 5 year period) and about 10% fewer 4 seams than we would see in an average Sale year. The pitch mix makes sense except the reduced FB's of any type being career lows and the velo across all pitches is troubling. We will know soon enough. If he ever throws 95-96 again I suspect it will be because he is trying to.

You guys might want to check out Sale's 2018 starts before giving up on trying to save himself. The first three months of the season he went 6, 6, 6 for starts. The last three months he went 4, 1, 4 for starts. He literally started twice as many games in the first 3 months as the last 3. He pitched 116 innings in the first half and 42 innings in the second. He averaged 6.44 innings per start in the 1st half and 4.66 innings per start in the 2nd half even over just 9 games! That followed a 2017 where Sale went 18 starts in the first half and 14 in the second logging 127 innings over the 1st half for a 7.05 innings per start average and 86 innings over the 14 starts of his 2nd half for an average of 6.14 innings per start. So Sale made 5 less starts in 2018 than 2017 and the 2017 trend continued sharply down in 2018. Whether they simply did not give Sale enough work in ST and/or have left him trying to figure out how to pitch this way now, it again just about amounts to the same thing....trying to save him early in the season based on two seasons of results as he enters his 30's. Of the 5 rotation guys I would say Price started the season most looking like the Price we would have expected (a good sign). ERod next looked like the guy we would have expected (not a good sign). Nat is next IMO as his pitches looked like his pitches. His motion looked like his motion. Same for arm angle. He was just wild in the strike zone and got blasted. I can't actually tell you what Rick looked like as he was in and out of his start so fast that if you went to make a bourbon on the rocks, you missed it. So I won't hazard a guess on Rick. Sale IMO looked less like the Sale we would have expected in pace, pitch location, pitch type by volume, velo....you name it. The only thing that matches up to the Sale that we would have expected was his compete level which is always through the roof and still is. In fact he lived off it in the Oakland start. So I would strongly suggest Sale is learning to live with something and regardless of why, he was not able to figure it out during ST. The thing that would make the most sense is that Management does not want to continue the 2017 and 2018 trend with Sale and I DON"T BLAME THEM!

Not trying to put words in the other poster's keyboard but anybody that thinks that Sale can quickly convert from what he was last year and the bulk of his career to what he was doing last night needs his head examined. If not for his competitive nature I am not even convinced he could have done it last night. He struggled mightily and that by itself will take its toll. His pace was almost Price-like. What we saw last night might well be where Sale is going. But its not like turning on and off a light switch. If Sale's physical attributes are at the heart of this change, as in aging and wear, then he might make some number of starts this year and will likely get some wins this year. But be the force we were hoping for.......I highly doubt it. If Sale is groping for a means to make starts early in the season while not taxing his arm fully intending to be the Chris Sale we have grown to appreciate later in the year that might be doable. But it still takes you back to the same place. He is clearly learning as he goes. He is either learning to live with reduced physical capacity or he is learning how to live with trying to save himself from reduced physical capacity later in the season by pitching this way early in the season. Either way it amounts to about the same thing with the exception that if it is the latter and not the former he might be better suited to being the Chris Sale we need later in the season. The last possibility in Sale's case is the one I find least likely....that being that Cora simply did not allow him even enough work in ST to have worked out in advance how he wanted to pitch early in the season leaving him to learn on the fly now. I just don't see a pitcher of his calibre allowing that to happen to himself no matter who is managing.

Well we got beat by another junk baller in game 6 of the new season. There is a shocker for ya'. We have been getting beaten up by junkers throwing stuff that crawls up to home plate for about a decade at least. We looked like we were swinging at whiffle balls Tuesday night. You would think we would keep one or two of these guys around just to keep them out of circulation around the league for us to have to face, but NO! Even when we get one, we jettison him about as fast as we can. It is kinda' interesting how teams tend to gravitate toward junkers and other teams do not like them on their staffs at all. A's have always had at least one junker in their rotation and sometimes two.

This ump has got a postage stamp size strike zone.

The 0-0 Slider was the best one he has thrown tonight. He is pitching. But its a struggle. If he can get that Slider to land he would at least have that.

The way hitting has changed in MLB (juice baseball plus shift) you simply cannot throw a FB up in the zone for a strike any longer. FB's have to rise out of the zone. You can throw two seams down though that pitch seems to be this decade's disappearing pitch. Nobody is throwing it any longer. If your FB just hangs there at the top of the zone, that pitch is meat and if you then throw your Change in the same location your FB is landing, Good NIGHT!

These pitches are all over the map. Slider out and up....since when? Change in the dirt followed by another Change in the hitter's eyes. Just a disaster waiting to happen.

Go ahead Chris...keep throwing that Change up there until the next one goes out.

If you are out there enough you will get a night like this mid-summer...several in fact. Will have you wondering why you packed what you packed into your suitcase and running to the Bullock and Jones or wherever. Famous N Cal weather saying: "worst winter I ever had was summer in San Francisco".

Surprised somebody reopened this thread. Anyway, our starters are throwing to terrible locations...just disastrous locations...all of them.

I think Eck is sort of funny talking about the pitching between HR's.

Now Sale is throwing his Change at the same eye level as his FB and his FB is not rising out of the zone. I can take these guys doing one thing or the other poorly. Both at once are killing me and they are virtually all doing it!

Here are tonight's lineups. I can't find the site I used last year. The site I used sorta' sucks. But here it is anyway. Mookie Betts Andrew Benintendi Rafael Devers J.D. Martinez Xander Bogaerts Mitch Moreland Eduardo Nunez Jackie Bradley Jr. Christian Vazquez Marcus Semien Matt Chapman Stephen Piscotty Khris Davis Mark Canha Chad Pinder Jurickson Profar Ramon Laureano Nick Hundley Found the site I used last year 1. Mookie Betts ® RF 2. Andrew Benintendi (L) LF 3. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 4. J.D. Martinez ® DH 5. Xander Bogaerts ® SS 6. Mitch Moreland (L) 1B 7. Brock Holt (L) 2B 8. Christian Vazquez ® C 9. Jackie Bradley Jr. (L) CF 1. Marcus Semien ® SS 2. Matt Chapman ® 3B 3. Stephen Piscotty ® RF 4. Khris Davis ® DH 5. Kendrys Morales (S) 1B 6. Mark Canha ® LF 7. Jurickson Profar (S) 2B 8. Ramon Laureano ® CF 9. Josh Phegley ® C

You guys are going to force me to the straight bourbon at .......about 2:00 PM. Oh what the heck ...close enough to the witching hour.

For once we agree on something. I think DD is just giving Swi his shot at staying and at the same time trying to extract some value if he trades him. Throwing Swi under the bus helps neither effort.

The rotation is for s*** at present. That is the one constant for the first 5 games. My only complaint about Cora and the coaching staff is that ERod pitched about like ERod has pitched his entire career here as a Starter....8,000 pitches per start, can't get past the 5th inning. So I don't see how it made sense to throw Swi under the bus. I am not a big Swi fan as he still IMO has to chase too many pitches to the backstop. But he didn't deserve that in the face of ERod pitching TRUE TO FORM.

Geez thats the first out of the inning.....nice outing Hembree.

I am a bit more irritated tonight about Cora and the Coaching staff blaming Swi for not "sticking to the plan" with Erod in his start. If the plan is throwing Changeups in hitters eyes, that plan SUCKS ASS!

If you are not throwing your FB rising up out of the zone and then you throw that Change up to the same location you are throwing the FB to, that Change is just leaving.

That was a nice pitch to get out of the jam.

Its almost like everybody trying to leave has also changed the way pitchers approach the truly dangerous hitters on the opposing teams...as if "well if everybody is trying to leave....whats the dif". Well the dif is that some guys actually can leave all the time ....like DAVIS! Can't just treat the Davis's of the world like everybody else has just caught up to them as far as the threat they represent. They haven't.