Video of As 1st playoff vs Detroit shows strong fan contribution
A’s Fall Short in First Playoff Game vs. Detroit Despite Fans’ ’10th Man Effort
The Scrappy Oakland A’s were the underdogs in the first American League playoff Game against Detroit and Cy Young Pitcher Max Sherzer. Their own ace, 40 year old wonder Bartolo Colon was, perhaps affected more by the five day layoff after the end of the season and gave up three runs in the first inning. But, after that, the A’s were the winners, scoring the only other runs of the game in the sixth inning on Yeonis Cespedes’ two run homerun that put them only one run down. With 48,000 screaming fan exhorting the A’s on almost every pitch one almost expected A’s Magic to happen again as it has so many times during the season. But the top pitcher in the American League and Detroit’s bullpen was just a little more than the A’s could handle; perhaps the layoff and first game jitters could account for part of their weak hitting performance ( only 3 hits on the night for a team with a .295 average against Sherzer; of course, the other side had to contend with the same layoff and jitters though it might have been harder for a 40 year old pitcher and an A’s team of younger players. The second game on Saturday will truly show what the A’s have in them, if they can bounce back – but it won’t be easy with another top pitcher, Verlander , going against them.
But, this game has to go down as one of the more exciting games for the home fans, despite the loss. As a fan next to me said, the enthusiastic A’s fan base may have gotten Cespedes’ juices going to hit the big home run that brought the A’s back to within one run. But one player’s performance a game does not make – Cepedes had two of the three hits – and the A’s needed fewer strikeouts and better performances from some other players this night. Our guess is that the A’s will show definite improvement in Game 2 with the first one under their belt.
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Joe DiMaggio once worked with the Oakland A’s and Charlie Finley in the 1970s/80s and would be proud of the current team, which plays much in the style of the old Yankee Clipper….good old, hard-nosed, no nonsense , smart baseball. There are no big name stars, just a lot of eager, aggressive, intelligent fun-loving ‘lower paid’ players who are playing for the love of the game as much as anything. There is also a manager, Bob Melvin, who has upset GM Billy Beane’s old theory that the manager doesn’t make a difference, who took over a team that revolted against it’s previous manager – and the coaching staff is second to none. They’ve gotten the most out of their young team. No help from modern technology, ie PEDs, like the cross Bay team. This is good old, real Golden Era Baseball like when DiMaggio played.
FORGET MONEYBALL – WHAT MONEY? ‘Low Paid’ 2013 A’s The Real Hollywood Story
by Mark Purdy, San Jose Mercury News
OAKLAND — The Hollywood producers blew it. Completely.
Perhaps you saw “Moneyball” a few years ago, the movie about the 2002 Oakland Athletics team supposedly composed of inferior players that shocked the baseball world with the killer combination of creative strategic thinking and Brad Pitt’s extremely evocative close-ups.
Mundane stuff, compared with 2013.
The current A’s team is the one that really deserves to have a film made about it. Maybe that will happen if the month of October becomes a rousing final reel. We’ll see if that happens, beginning here Friday when the A’s face the Detroit Tigers in Game 1 of the American League Division Series.
To be sure, the A’s of 2002 were intriguing.
Oakland Athletics players and fans exult as the last out of the game is made against the Minnesota Twins, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013, at O.co Coliseum in Oakland, Calif. (D. ROSS CAMERON)
They had a 20-game win streak and did break ground when general manager Billy Beane (portrayed by Pitt in the film) started using statistical data to make personnel and lineup decisions.But come on. Those A’s did not feature a stadium that leaked raw sewage; or an uncertain future in their home city; or a relief pitcher from Australia who screams a lot and grew up playing rugby; or a right fielder nicknamed “Hillbilly Jesus”; or a powerfully exotic slugger from Cuba who obliterated the Home Run Derby at the All-Star Game. The A’s of 2013 have given us all of the above. And then some.
“We do have some interesting guys,” A’s manager Bob Melvin conceded this week.
Not that many casual sports fans in the Bay Area would know. MORE
How The (2013 American League) West Was Won
There were a lot of great months in the A’s 2013 playoff run, but none better than the month of September, that saw the A’s overcome a 2-game deficit to eventually win the Division and finish the season five games ahead of the Rangers, who were knocked out in the play-in Wild Card game. The A’s played strong when it counted, and as Texas faded, they took complete advantage; even Texas’ end-of-the-season winning streak was too little too late to dethrone the 2-time defending American League West Champions, and that’s why the Oakland Athletics will be playing tomorrow.
The A’s started September by finishing a sweep of the Rays, obviously catching them, too, at their weakest point of the season. A lot of the A’s success–winning the Division with a full week to spare–came by playing Texas and Tampa Bay at exactly the right time. Had the AL West and Wild Card gone down to the wire with the A’s still in the mix, they would have had to win out to keep pace with the other teams, who won the remainder of their last games to get into the playoffs, even briefly. Before the penultimate showdown between the A’s and the Rangers, the A’s first took out the Rays, in game #136. Nico has the call: Joe Maddon thought he would try as many different pitchers as possible, so the A’s decided to score in as ma ny creative ways as they could and the end result was a 5-1 victory, a sweep of Tampa Bay, and just 1 game between Oakland and Texas in the standings as the Rangers come to town. This left the A’s just one game back, as they geared up to face the Rangers.
Unlike previous experiences with the Rangers, the A’s did not waste this opportunity, fighting hard to take two out of three, and climbing back on top of the AL West. Game one was recapped by Lev Facher, who coaxed the A’s to a tie: A solid five innings from Dan Straily, home runs from Coco Crisp and Yoenis Cespedes, and scoreless relief work from Dan Otero, Brett Anderson, Ryan Cook, and Grant Balfour have the A’s back in a tie for first place. In front of 23,495 frenzied fans on a sun-splashed day at the Oakland Coliseum, a few costly mistakes on Texas’ part and a nerve-wracking yet effective four innings from the bullpen gave the A’s a 4-2 win, and seemingly all of the momentum in the AL West race. There really wasn’t anything “seemingly” about it. Aside from losing the following night, the game also handled by Lev Facher: Well, the A’s are back in second place. An all-around uninspiring evening from the green and gold has the A’s a game behind the Rangers, making the rubber match tomorrow afternoon almost a must-win with three games in Arlington looming on the horizon. Bartolo Colon was both mediocre and unlucky tonight, while the A’s offense stalled repeatedly with runners in scoring position. The bullpen wasn’t great, either. Heard this one before?, the A’s would strap on their playoff underoos and decimate the rest of the month, winning series after series. They finished the Rangers’ series with a win, as baseballgirl tells us, the game also marking the return of Daric. Barton. The plucky A’s, winners of eight of their last ten games, shook off yesterday’s loss like it didn’t even matter, and continued their trend of stomping all over ace pitchers as they dismantled Rangers’ starter Yu Darvish and gutted the rest of the Texas bullpen to the tune of 11-4. The big blows of the game were home runs off the bats of Moss, Donaldson, and Coco. Oh, and also: Daric. Barton. This tied the A’s and Rangers for first place, with barely 20 games to go in the season..
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