Oakland Athletics pitcher lefty Dallas Braden threw the 17th ever perfect game (in the Modern Era) today against the Tampa Bay Rays, and the first one on Mother’s Day.
It was the 2nd time the Rays had been thrown against a perfect game in less than a year.
Braden, 26, was recently known for his comments on Yankee Alex Rodriguez stepping over the mound to get over to 1st base during a game.
Not anymore, as this game is added to history forever.
The 27th out came as Gabe Kapler hit the ball, then scooped into Shortstop Cliff Pennington’s glove, and it was thrown over to 1st base.
His catcher was Landon Powell, who replaced the injured Kurt Suzuki. Powell said in an interview that he and Braden had talked with each other in the tunnel before the game.
As it became official, the first person Braden looked to was his Grandmother, who was very emotional as she was hugging him.
This year will be his first full season as a starter.
The last time a perfect game was pitched was when Mark Buehrle did it last year at Chicago.
A perfect game thrown by Dallas Braden: Do I really need to say more?
One of my pet peeves with baseball analysis is when commentators discuss a team that just missed the playoffs and attribute their missing out on losing games in September.
Games count just as much now as they do in September, though. Win more now, and you can afford to lose more down the stretch.
The A’s face a three-game set with a tough Tampa Bay team before going on the road for three-game sets at Texas and LA before a two-game home series with Seattle that wraps up May 18.
It’s a key stretch, and the A’s would do well to win now so they can relax more in September.
What will they need to find success? Let’s look at five things that would help.
Bailey is one of only three closers (Broxton and Rivera) who have not given up a run yet.
He has just four saves on the year however, two of which came last week. Oakland’s closer gave up just one hit in 3.2 IP last week.
Heath Bell (Padres)
Bell has enjoyed the Padres success this year just as much as anyone else on the team.
To date the closer has a 1.64 ERA and is seven-for-eight in SVO (save opportunities). Last week he recorded two saves while striking out six in just three IP.
Joba Chamberlain (Yankees)
Whether it is due to a slow week for closers, or just giving one of my pre-season sleepers some love, Joba gets an A for his work last week (two-for-two in SVO, three K’s.) Mariano Rivera should be back soon so don’t expect Chamberlain to make it on this list again unless Mo goes down for a lengthy period of time.
Kevin Gregg (Blue Jays)
Gregg had a beautiful week with five K’s and two saves.
The Jays closer allowed just one hit in three IP, he has a 0.69 ERA on the year.
Grade: B
Neftali Feliz (Rangers)
Feliz had his best week this year recording a save in all four chances while striking out four.
No doubt this young-gun still gets a bit rattled (gave up two-earned during the week) but he should continue to gain knowledge and confidence as the Rangers closer.
Joakim Soria (Royals)
Joakim fanned five in 2.2 IP while making good on both SVO.
Soria added another run to his season total (three ER) and raised his ERA to 2.31. The Royals closer is on pace for 52 saves this year.
Rafael Soriano (Rays)
The Rays have the best record in baseball and today have one of the best closers in the game it seems.
Soriano looks like he will probably have his best season as professional this year. With help from one of the best lineups in baseball Soriano has been perfect in SVO (seven-for-seven) this year and has a very good 2.25 ERA.
Grade: C
Carlos Marmol (Cubs)
Marmol didn’t allow a run and struck out six but just didn’t have the chances.
He closed the door on his only SVO but walked three during the week. With that said, the Cubs should have no questions about their closer who has 25 K’s in just 12.2 IP.
What’s more, he has an ERA below one (0.71) after 12 appearances.
Grade: D
Trevor Hoffman (Brewers)
As I have mentioned before, this is the not the guy you want on your fantasy team . The same could be said for the Brewers bullpen. Last week Hoffman blew another save and currently has an ERA of 11.70 on the year.
He will not last much longer as the closer in Milwaukee!
Bobby Jenks (White Sox)
It seems to me Jenks tries to make every save chance an interesting one.
If he comes in with no one on-base, rest assured there will be one soon. Jenks recorded one save in his only chance but gave up two-earned and four hits in just two IP. Still, he is five-for-five on the year in SVO.
Grade: F
Brian Wilson (Giants)
The normally reliable Wilson had a down week giving up two-earned and walking two in just two IP. He blew his only save chance and struck out just one. I DO NOT see this as being a norm, he should revert back to his normal-self and continue working on his 1.93 ERA.
Frank Francisco (Rangers)
I know there are two Rangers closers on this list and it doesn’t make much sense, but neither does the Rangers having two closers!
Francisco gave up four hits, four walks, and two earned runs on his path to a 7.71 ERA. I would keep Francisco as far away as possible from a save chance and even further from my fantasy team.
During his pregame session with the media, before the Oakland Athletics took on the Texas Rangers, manager Bob Geren revealed that Justin Duchscherer “had an MRI and it said there’s just some inflation” in his left hip.
So it goes in the mental and physical siege known as the Major League Baseball season.
You’ll forgive Geren if one conversation bleeds into another, even if it is only May and the 162-game slate is less than 20 percent complete. I mean, can you really blame his subconscious for transposing the American economic plight with that of his charges?
You’ll also have to forgive him if your initial reaction to his handling of the Show’s external forces is similar to mine. That is, this guy isn’t exactly warm and cuddly.
Baseball can be a grind in the best of times and the A’s are currently experiencing the gloomier of the Dickensian options.
With player after player coming up with bumps and bruises ranging from day-to-day hot spots all the way through certified tickets to the disabled list, the 2-6 mark in the club’s last eight games is really the least of Oakland’s worries.
Tuesday’s hard-fought victory over the first place Texas shows the A’s have enough firepower to stay the course.
For now.
However, if Duke, Kurt Suzuki, and Brett Anderson don’t hurry back from the shelf, the 2010 season could be in danger of flying out the window. After all, the old diamond adage is that pennants can’t be won in April and May, but they most certainly can be lost in the early going.
Often, that’s exactly where a team derails—classic September meltdowns notwithstanding.
So there is the onrushing precipice gnawing at Geren and his White Elephants, which can weigh on your mind and wear on your patience.
Consequently, it’s no surprise that warm-ups prior to Monday’s date with the Rangers had a noticeably more subdued feel than those I witnessed during my previous trip to the Oakland Coliseum (a game against the Cleveland Indians with the team sitting in first at 10-7).
Losing guys and games can have that effect.
Complicating matters is the standard tedium.
It’s nobody’s fault because the demand for information—any information—drives the sports journalism industry. Plus, there’s no real penalty for failing to pose a genuinely useful question.
Frankly, half the battle seems to be just getting the target talking.
Nevertheless, I’ve now been a part of several Ultimate Fighting Championship press conferences, a couple similar sessions hosted by MLB, and a few other Q & A’s with persons paid to compete.
From what I can tell, most of the questions asked of professional athletes are underwhelming to say the least. They often require the responder to provide the substance by asking yes/no questions in a setting where a simple yes/no reflects unflatteringly on the utterer.
For example, here are some of the queries faced by the A’s manager (including all of the good ones):
—Did he have a chance to talk to Duchscherer after his doctor visit?
—Will how Duke responds to treatment determine whether he goes on the DL?
—How is Suzuki coming along and what kind of exercises is he doing?
—Will his injury affect him as a backstop more than it would, say, an outfielder?
—When Gio Gonzalez is on, is he as good as anybody in the game?
—When a pitcher faces a team he’s been a part of, who has the advantage (the team was facing ex-Athletic Rich Harden)?
—Is the pitching depth nice to have with all the injuries?
—After all that traveling (to Tampa Bay and then Toronto), is it good to be home?
—Have you seen anyone giving Dallas Braden a hard time over the pitcher’s mound incident?
Again, I’m not trying to clown the reporters looking for the info; that’s their directive and the majority of the worthwhile probes will be dodged anyway. In other words, the options—go with the canned stuff or keep quiet until inspiration strikes, if it strikes—aren’t terribly attractive.
Still, it’s gotta be frustrating to have to craft interesting replies to uninteresting prompts. Especially when you have to do it day after day after day for five months.
Sooner or later, you’ll get a curt comeback and, voila, there’s the villain for the day.
Which is something to keep in mind when one of those scandalous remarks gets ripped out of context and slathered across the front page.
I’m not suggesting anyone have unblinking sympathy for these men (a few of which are still boys) or that they constantly deserve the benefit of the doubt.
The Major League minimum is now $400,000.
I’d wager that maybe one of my Stanford friends is making that sum and we’ve been out of school for almost a decade. Several of us have been to and graduated from one prestigious law/business school or another.
Meanwhile, a lot of these kids are new to the whole legally drinking thing and never stepped foot inside a classroom beyond high schoool.
Furthermore, they’re getting these absurd paychecks to roam the country and play baseball.
As Geren understated it, in response to the travel question, “the way the team travels is a pretty nice set-up.” Or as Johnny Damon said recently , “even our tough times are so much better than what other people have going on out there.”
Nope, the “woe is me” card is one perk in which the pros do NOT get to partake.
But it’s still important to remember that the Milton Bradleys of Major League Baseball are the exceptions, not the rule. Most of these men are perfectly decent, but they’re human.
Their mythical powers don’t exist unless they’ve got leather or lumber in hand.
Last year the Oakland A’s made big noise in the acquisition of Matt Holliday. Unfortunately, it also meant that the A’s gave up talent to the Colorado Rockies to get him and now that talent is doing so much more than Holliday did in an A’s uniform.
This trade by far was the worst decision Beane has ever made for the A’s. He gave up Carlos Gonzalez, Greg Smith, and Huston Street to bring Holliday over from the Rockies. Holliday didn’t win many fans in Oakland with his lackadaisical play and his slow start to the season.
He eventually was traded on July 24th, 2009 to the St. Louis Cardinals and the A’s brought in Brett Wallace, Shane Peterson, and Clayton Mortensen. Only Mortenson has seen time in the big leagues for the A’s. Wallace was traded this off season to the Toronto Blue Jays for Michael Taylor.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that the Baseball Gods lack a sense of humor; it’s simply not true. The collective funny bone is intact—the problem is that comedy doesn’t tickle it.
Instead, it’s cruelty that gives the diamond deities a case of the giggles.
Over the course of any team’s 162-game season, a fan will see ample proof of this perversity. At the moment, aficionados of the Oakland Athletics are getting their eyeful.
Just as the 2010 Athletic campaign was taking on a very rosy glint, the Oaktown nine hit a pothole and began throwing rods. Those of you familiar with my dastardly deeds probably won’t find it a coincidence that the going got rough almost immediately after yours truly sang the franchise’s praises (and again here ).
You name it and it’s been going wrong since the club left town for a six-game road trip through Tampa Bay and Toronto —the 1-5 record doesn’t even tell the short of it.
In fact, some of the oil started leaking before the green and gold even made it out of the Bay Area.
The injury bug took a big ol’ bite out of the team, felling several key pieces in Brett Anderson, Kurt Suzuki, and Justin Duchscherer (to name a few). For those unfamiliar with the Elephants, that’s the starting catcher and two of the top three starters.
Ouch.
Not surprisingly, the pitching began belching smoke and not the good kind.
Ben Sheets suffered a regression—performance-wise—in his two turns on a foreign bump as he comes back from elbow surgery. Dallas Braden got knocked around in his first start post-mound-crossing and Trevor Cahill got shelled making his 2010 debut in Anderson’s slot.
Luckily for Oakland , Gio Gonzalez bowed his neck on Saturday and managed to salvage the one game against the Blue Jays. The southpaw whiffed eight in 6 2/3 innings while conceding only two earned runs and five baserunners to Toronto.
On Tuesday, the Athletics will get an idea of exactly how bad the carnage’s gonna get.
Vin Mazzaro will be pressed into duty against the Texas Rangers because of inflammation in Duke’s left hip. Incidentally, that’s NOT his surgically repaired joint nor is it a ding to shoulder, back or psyche—the maladies that limited the Oakland righty in two of the last three years.
Not sure if that’s good or bad news regarding Duchscherer, but it certainly takes on an ominous blush if Mazzaro can’t deliver quickly on a substantial bit of his potential.
And that’s only the arms.
The hitting—never to be confused with the ’61 New York Yankees in the first place—has seen some of the bloom come off Daric Barton’s rose. His hot, multi-hit-per-game bat has cooled down considerably, causing his average to dip below .300.
Additionally, the loss of Suzuki’s been felt as much on offense as it has on defense.
Happily, the state of the lumber is not all gloom and doom.
On the contrary, second baseman Adam Rosales put together a nice run with 10 hits in 21 road at-bats. Ryan Sweeney’s in a nice groove, as is Kevin Kouzmanoff, and Cliff Pennington contributed a four-hit game in Tampa plus a three-hit contest in Toronto.
Furthermore, rookie catcher Josh Donaldson launched his first big fly in Canada and then put on a crazy hitting display in batting practice before Monday’s game against the Rangers. My man isn’t that big, but he was powdering the pill to all fields and displaying the explosive charge off the splinter that gets scouts excited.
Obviously, BP is not the real thing, but the kid stood out nonetheless.
In one final ray of sunshine, the American League West has been cooperating.
None of the residents has been able to grab control of the division. The Rangers, Anaheim Angels (sorry, Anaheim ain’t LA), and the Seattle Mariners are all caught in the one-step-forward-two-steps-back waltz. So, despite the recent struggles, the A’s still find themselves merely a loss off Texas’ first-place pace.
Nevertheless, the Baseball Gods must relent if the Oakland Athletics are to have a chance at realizing their dream season. Sooner or later, somebody in the Junior Circuit’s western group will rattle off a winning streak.
When that happens, the A’s better be ready.
The disabled list must be cleared of critical components and those struggling pieces must cross over to the sunnier side of the street. Otherwise, the fat lady might come and go before August.
Of course, it might also help if I’d stop jinxing them…
Coming into Friday night’s games, it appears that the Oakland A’s may have come out of the starting gate with a small, although not decisive, lead in the division race.
That’s in spite of the fact that the four teams of the American League West have very similar records. And the first month of the season is just closing.
There are two considerations that put Oakland a little ahead. One is how well they’ve done in the division itself. The other is how many tough games outside the division they’ve played.
Oakland is 6-4 against Western Division rivals, leading in the season series against both the Los Angeles Angels and the Seattle Mariners. It stands to reason that both teams have (so far) losing records in the division.
The only division team the A’s haven’t played so far is the Texas Rangers, and they now trail Oakland by the most.
The division games are the most important for two reasons: 1) a team plays more of them than games outside the division, and 2) a victory in such a game is automatically a loss (and vice-versa) for someone else in the race.
The other reason is that the A’s are still ahead after being set back in six games against the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays, Without the 1-5 record in those games, the A’s record would be an impressive 11-6.
The Angels have done somewhat better, 3-3 against the Yankees, but they haven’t played the arguably tougher Rays. The Angels are playing barely above .500 ball, with or without the Yankees. The Texas Rangers are 0-3 against the Yankees, meaning that they would have a winning record otherwise.
The Mariners’ schedule has been the easiest, with eight games against the likes of the Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals, and Chicago White Sox, although they are only 5-3 in those games. They haven’t been tested against the tougher American League East teams.
Taking just the raw statistics, without allowing for strength of schedule, Oakland has above-average pitching, as usual, and for a change, average hitting. No one division rival dominates Oakland in both categories.
Seattle has comparable pitching but worse hitting. Los Angeles is the reverse; worse pitching, comparable hitting. Texas is slightly worse than Oakland in both categories.
We’ll have a better idea of how things stand after Oakland plays the Texas Rangers next week. Those three games could confirm, or undermine, Oakland’s lead. Until then, my money is on the A’s.
Oakland’s advantages so far are small, but very real, given its tougher schedule. The tiny gap between it and its opponents may widen when the latter have to face the tougher competition.
If you were to ask me in mid-March who I thought would be the A’s leader in RBIs through the first month of the season, I probably wouldn’t have said Cliff Pennington.
Well, Pennington, a former first-round pick, is off to a strong start for the A’s this season. Through 24 games, Pennington has managed to hit .250/.337/.461 and has collected a team-leading 15 RBIs.
While his batting average is nothing to excited about, his unexpected display of power, however, should make even the most pessimistic A’s fan feel all giddy inside.
Along with Pennington, second baseman Adam Rosales has emerged as a surprising leader on offense. Rosales, who was not expected to make the team in spring training, has emerged onto the scene now that Mark Ellis is sidelined with an injury.
The young infielder has collected 10 RBIs of his own, and has gone 18-for-55 (.327) in 19 games this season with the A’s. His line of .327/.367/.491 is impressive, considering he was expected to be a utility player at best this year for the A’s.
As a team, the A’s are hitting .254 (eighth in AL), are ninth in on-base percentage (.322), and 11th in slugging percentage (.377). Despite scoring 104 runs (fifth in AL), the A’s offense has slowed down considerably since the start of the season.
The A’s pitching has been solid throughout the first month of the season (14 quality starts), but with recent injuries to Brett Anderson and Justin Duchscherer, the A’s will need more offensive production from other players like Eric Chavez, Kevin Kouzmanoff, and Rajai Davis.
Cliff Pennington and Adam Rosales have both gotten off to solid starts, but Oakland is going to need more than just three (the third being Daric Barton) hitters in their lineup.
The A’s have had a promising start to the 2010 campaign. Some have left A’s fans weeping saying “this looks all too familiar!” But there is room for optimism, and since I’m the optimism king of my Oakland A’s, I feel it’s my duty to keep fans uplifted.
At the beginning of the season I predicted a season winning percentage of no worse than .500 in 2010. I stand by that. The A’s have the talent that goes far overlooked by the rest of the league. In fact, the A’s could surprise everyone. I’ve compiled a list of things that need to happen for the A’s to capture the AL West, and no, a miracle is not on the list.