SEATTLE	AVG		OAKLAND	AVG
I. Suzuki rf	.295		M. Kotsay cf	.281
R. Winn lf	.276		M. Ellis 2b	.288
A. Beltre 3b	.257		E. Chavez 3b	.275
R. Sexson 1b	.243		B. Crosby ss	.327
R. Ibanez dh	.291		S. Hatteberg dh	.282
B. Boone 2b	.235		B. Kielty lf	.294
J. Reed cf	.263		D. Johnson 1b	.275
M. Morse ss	.370		N. Swisher rf	.241
P. Borders c	.225		A. Melhuse c	.125
SEATTLE	ERA		OAKLAND	ERA
G. Meche	4.79		D. Haren	3.89

For the sweep...

Today is Will Carroll's birthday. He's already beat cancer, so his birthday wish list is running short. He did speak of wanting"to be recognized as a professional baseball writer". Funny how the Baseball Writers' Association of America works. You could write two books, contribute to dozens of others on baseball, write a daily column for years and simply because the Biggs Bugle Tribune Picayune/Springfield Shopper, Times, Post, Globe, Herald, Jewish News and Hot Sex Weekly did not have you on staff - you're not a professional baseball writer.

Nuts to that.

Will points out the article by Susan Slusser (Slusser must sleep outside Byrnes' front door - or Byrnes is the biggest media whore since, well, Barry Zito). Slusser describes Byrnes' recent trip to the physician's office, where the physician supposedly wasn't in. Byrnes had X-rays on his bruised right shoulder after a collision with the rightfield wall Sunday (Byrnes often confuses running into walls with hustle).

Upon viewing the X-Rays Byrnes had no idea what he was looking at.

"The assistant didn't know and the doctor wasn't in the office, but Byrnes explained Tuesday, "I drove an hour, I wanted to see what was going on."


He had an inspiration and requested an X-ray of his healthy left shoulder for comparison's sake. When he held up the X-rays, the shoulders looked the same. "

This is where common sense should have prevailed over ignorant athlete and hack sportswriter.

Medical Assistants do not have the legally ability to provide medical advice; reading X-Rays would be right out. As just a small aside, do you really think the A's should have to pay for the second set of X-Rays?

Byrnes, rather than looking in the office for a physician, intern, resident, medical student or qualified health care provider decided he was fit for play. Byrnes was in Oakland. Why not take the X-Rays to Larry Davis over at the Coliseum? Why not get on a phone and call someone and make an appointment to have the X-Rays read (rather than just showing up - or claiming there were no doctors around)? How about asking a front office MOSC if there was a provider associated with the clinic using Relay Health? I'll wager donuts to dollars, again, that the X-Rays were available on a web-based radiological site and any physician in the western hemisphere with an internet connection could view the X-Rays and send Byrnes on his healthy or in harm's way in 15 minutes.

But, no. Byrnes must always make the spectacle of himself. And to show how bright the A's brain trust is below the Front Office, they allowed Byrnes to play on Tuesday night where he went 0-for-3 with a walk and a strike out.

Byrnes was out of the line-up last night, but that is easily dismissible as the Mariners threw right-hander Ryan Franklin at the A's. With Gil Meche going today, Byrnes will most likely see another day off.

The question remains, is it just a slight bruise to Byrnes' right shoulder or is there structural damage? Are the A's in danger of hiding an injury to a tradable commodity? Will Byrnes trade value slip if the injury causes him to miss significant time or a trip to the DL?

Eh.

More than likely Byrnes stays out of the line up a few more days and the shoulder heals.

The lack of a lineup was do to a lack of wireless connectivity at the Coliseum. You know, the stadium with the Information Technology name, Z E R O wireless access.

If you watch the highlights of the game, you'll see myself, Kerry and Ken Arneson (Catfish Stew) on Nick Swisher's homerun.

Just look for the dork with the laptop.

Today over at Baseball Prospectus Joe Sheehan has a post on the A's and rightly puts to rest any substantial talk about the A's making a run at the AL West or Wild Card.

"What's certain is that the A's aren't going to just be a footnote to this season. I expect them to continue playing well, and while my preseason prediction of 90-odd wins and a division title is unlikely to come true, the underlying idea--that the A's could contend through a transition--seems to be proving sound. The Braves are the model for successful roster turnover; if the A's can pull it off, they would be the first small-market team to achieve this feat, and set off another round of agitated debate over the right way to run a baseball team."

SEATTLE	AVG		OAKLAND	AVG
I. Suzuki rf	.293		J. Kendall c	.268
R. Winn lf	.283		M. Kotsay cf	.279
A. Beltre 3b	.261		B. Crosby ss	.316
R. Sexson 1b	.246		E. Chavez 3b	.266
R. Ibanez dh	.291		B. Kielty lf	.285
B. Boone 2b	.237		E. Byrnes dh	.257
J. Reed cf	.270		D. Johnson 1b	.286
M. Morse ss	.395		N. Swisher rf	.246
P. Borders c	.221		M. Scutaro 2b	.254
SEATTLE	ERA		OAKLAND	ERA
J. Moyer	4.36		B. Zito	4.41

Lots of lefty action, slow lefty action.

Again, the A's need to lay off the first pitch from Moyer, take a strike and wait for a pitch to drive from Moyer. The more over-anxious the hitter, the more it plays into Moyer's hands.

I have be getting a few dozen emails a day with questions and I am going to take the rest of the day and respond to them and then post them in this space. If you would like to send off a question or two to be answered (around 3:00 VST, roughly Pacific Standard Time) send it to ElephantsinOakland@Gmail.com .

Please let me know if it is 'okay' to use your wording and initials, otherwise I'll paraphrase as needed.



Questions from JUNE 17 - 26. If I didn't get to yours in this quippy post, I'll do this again in a few days.

QUESTION: Why isn't there more content/stuff here and why don't you go 'pro' (advertise)?

ANSWER: I don't advertise on this blog, and therefore I have to make a living with a day job. And the job is taxing, physically and emotionally. Elephants in Oakland is driven by content and mostly that content comes from my brain to your lap(top). Most blogs work like that and should work like that. This blog is mostly my opinion. Whether you agree or disagree is your opinion. And I value both.

A blog is a web log. Blogs are a tool to constantly update information on the internet without having to constantly reformat or generate new pages to view.

The reason that content is sometimes lacking is that I am either working on it, working or I am at a game.

I know, odd for somebody who has a blog to go to games, isn't it?

I am an A's fan, but I also have a reasonable ability (and responsibility) to think on my own. And that sometimes irritates people as I kill their buzz. Yes, it's great when the A's win! Not so great when they use five relief pitchers and lose the next two games because their relief pitchers were used improperly. I'm an A's fan and that means every move by the front office, every throw over to 1st base to hold a runner, every speck of pine tar on a bat has meaning - yesterday, today and most importantly for tomorrow.

Blogs are not about getting paid, once you get paid, it's really no longer a blog, is it? It's a website with ads. Or an ad with very little content. Blogs are about content and opinion and point of view. They are not about soliciting wares and services under the guise of baseball information. That's what spam and junk mail are for. There are too many blogs and internet sites out there that have very little content, no information and a whole lot of ads, and empty space.

I get a number of requests for link exchanges and stats concerning my blog and how much money I can make with advertising. There are also a few emails suggesting that all I need to do is add a few key words here and there to boost my 'hits' and software applications to further boost 'hits' with phantom readers.

Once you make the decision to make money off of something, the outlook changes. I don't take or make a damn dime off of this blog. I have only added the comments section as I was inundated with Email and was falling behind. Once the comments overwhelm the content, then it's not a blog, is it? It's a message board. And the A's have a message board at MLB.com and at ESPN.com and other places.

I also don't want to resort to taking information from readers to have to 'sign up' or 'log in'. That information is always sold to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th parties.

This is a blog. Yes, I do have plans to go from blog to more of a 'site', but the blog portion will always be there in some form.

Too often blogs, baseball blogs and others, get all worked up over the 'Look at Me' part of having a place on the internet and are more worried about 'hits'. That's not how it's done, (it's on-base percentage and to a larger point), it's all about content.



QUESTION: Are the A's going to make the playoffs?

ANSWER: Yes. In 2005? No. They squandered April and May and lost a lot of games they should have won. Further, Ken Macha misused the bullpen on several occasions and set up losses the next day because of his decision-making. Could the A's make the playoffs, though? Sure, you'd have to see Anaheim and Texas play below .500 for the rest of the season for that to happen. Unless a massive flu virus hits or the Angels lose their entire outfield, that just is not going to happen.


QUESTION: You're so negative and don't even want the A's to win. Why do you even bother wasting your time with writing all of your crap?

ANSWER: Just to bug you personally.

I'll combine the first question with this 'question'; if the A's aren't going to make the playoffs, what is the point of watching games, going to games and writing about it?

Because this is a bump in the road. Because you are an A's fan, because I am an A's fan. That is the reason to watch.

The problem I have watching the A's in 2005 is not that they lost so often, early, it was how they were losing and the excuses and subsequent media reports that came from those losses.

I don't even mind low scoring games on the A's end as long as A's hitters work the count and force the opposing pitching staff to earn their outs. As long as the A's offense is honest in its efforts, I'm fine.

The fact is, the A's have a lousy tradition of being nonchalant in the 1st half of the season and as last year proved, the division can come down to the last weekend of the season.


QUESTION: What's wrong with the A's pitching staff? You always seem to pop a fuse when talking about it.

ANSWER: The pitching staff, Ken Macha's ridiculous use of the bullpen aside, is coming along nicely. It just took a lot of screaming from the A's front office to have Curt Young get personally involved in his job duties. Visits to the pitching mound might only be cosmetic in approach, but there is a psychological blip that can be attributed as well.

I haven't really been a big fan of some of the A's training staff approaches to keeping the pitchers healthy and ready, but that might be a post for another time.

I have a tirade of issues with the use of the bullpen, the two most important I'll discuss here. Ken Macha has never learned how to use the A's bullpen in an efficient or effective manner. Part of that stems from his inability to put together a lineup 1-9 that scores enough runs to give him room to err. The other problem stems from leaving in a starting pitcher too long. I am not referring to pitch counts. I am referring to effectiveness and how many times through the order a starting pitcher progresses through (good rule of thumb, you don't want a starter to face an opposing batter more than 3 times in a single game) the opposition's batting order.

You've heard the old relief pitcher's standard "minimize the damage"? That's hard for A's relief pitchers to do when Ken Macha decided it is better to let the bomb explode and then try to diffuse it.

Example: A's trail 3-1 in a ball game with one out in the 6th inning. The Starting pitcher has a pitch count above 90 and is about to face the opposition's batting order for the 4th time. The general rule to follow would be to let the starter go unless a runner gets on base, then, absolutely, positively, going to the bullpen if a runner gets to 2nd base. No questions asked. Just do it. Pull the trigger.

Remember, this is not the National League. There are no substitutions to consider.

Too often the A's allow two or more runners on base and suddenly the score goes from the A's trailing by two to trailing by three, four, or more and putting the game out of reach.

It's better to pull a starter too soon, rather than too late.


QUESTION: Why don't you like Player X?

ANSWER: I addressed this a few weeks ago in something called 'THE HATE'. I don't hate any of the A's players. In fact, more than some of the A's blogs or fan sites I have defended a lot of the more human and personal issues that track the modern player.

On the other hand, this is professional baseball and personal issues aside, the production has to be there on the field.

I have a quick tree that I go through with any player as far when they deserve to be criticized or ostracized:

1. Production. Is the player is productive at, or above expected norms? Has that player's lack of production become a trend?


2. Cost. How much is the player's production, or lack thereof, costing the A's in the amount of dollars? Has that become an unacceptable cost?


3. Replacement. Are the players in the A's minor league system out performing, or could they out perform the same player at this time?


4. Overall. Is the player's place on the 25 man roster counterproductive to the A's end goal, i.e. winning as many of the scheduled 162 games as possible?

If you get more than one 'YES' going doing that short list, then it should be obvious that a change is needed.

QUESTION: Why do you talk about the A's minor league players so much?

ANSWER: To be an A's fan is not to be a fan of one or two of the players who wear an Oakland A's uniform. It is to be a fan of the Oakland Athletics Baseball Club as an organization from top to bottom. To the product the organization puts out in Oakland to the players assembled in Arizona for the Rookie League and the players in the Latin American program.

Not just the players on the field, but the players in the front office, the scouting department and the coaching staffs.

It's not a passing fancy. It's a deep rooted cause and effect relationship.

The Oakland A's team is essentially pushed along by what is behind it; the minor league system.

And some of these guys are criminally underpaid, overworked and genuinely scared of the day somebody walks up to them and tells them to clean out their locker - dream is over, they can't make it as a professional baseball player. Everything their life was to that point is gone in a grunted statement.

How's that for tragedy?


QUESTION: How can you call yourself an A's fan when all you do is criticize the team?

ANSWER: Don't sell me short, I don't criticize the team. I criticize the entire organization.

Being an A's fan is not turning over objective thought and critical reason to a form of illogical blind brand loyalty the way some define patriotism in the United States.

Being an A's fan means calling out Billy Beane on poor decisions, it means screaming at Ken Macha when he keeps allowing his base runners to get caught stealing, it means calling Robert Baun on the A's post game shows and asking him to allow fans to vent rather than try and paint a pretty picture of the A's outlook.

It helps if you have some data or a qualified opinion to back up your reasoning; but it's also okay just to say, "you know, I don't like the way Player X approaches his at-bats, I wish the A's would get rid of him". Now, would I write that? No, I tend to overload you with statistical information when I suggest there is a problem.

If we were all blind loyalists to the A's, hell or high-water, Tony LaRussa might still be the manager, Jeff Newman would be catching and Shooty Babbitt would be hitting leadoff.

Yeesh? That's about right.



QUESTION: Will the A's trade Barry Zito?

ANSWER: I could just as easily mention Player X or list every one of the A's controlled players in this question.

Here's my answer; Yes and No.

You have to remember that Billy Beane once traded himself to Boston...and wriggled out of it.

If the offer is there, lopsided in his favor, Billy Beane will make the deal.

And as with all things that accompany Billy Beane I like to use a quote uttered by Will Carroll (and others) many times, "Billy Beane didn't just get stupid over night..."

When you look at a deal by Billy Beane, you really have to have a wide-angle lens and a lot of time on your hand. It takes years sometimes for all the facts to come into range to weigh certain trades and moves. To wit...


QUESTION: Why did the A's trade Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson?

ANSWER: Because.

The easiest answer is; because.

I stated it a number of times, you could look at it as a cost cutting measure and the A's came out great. They shed a lot of dough. You could look at it as a risk management move (injuries) and the A's came out great. They were able to put cheap replacement parts on the 25 Man Roster; it's cheaper to have a AAA pitcher rehabbing an injury than it is for a pitcher making $7 Million a season, isn't it?

If you want to look at it as the number of wins and losses, you really can't make that argument. Losing Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder does not hurt the A's in the Win/Loss column as much as people like Ray Ratto seem to think.

While the Hudson trade 'looks' worse than the Mulder trade, it certainly doesn't have the instant data available. Danny Haren and Daric Barton are going to be key assets for the A's for years to come. And they are cheap. Mark Mulder was no longer cheap and about to break down. Tim Hudson has broken down. And neither pitcher has been scoring a lot of runs for their new team and the A's problem the last three seasons has been; chorus, please - SCORING RUNS.

As far as return on Danny Meyer and Charles Thomas and Juan Cruz. Time will tell.


QUESTION: Will the Angels and Rangers tail off?

ANSWER: I don't trust any pitching staff in Arlington between July and September. The Rangers can score at will on offense, but just not as quickly as their pitching staff will give up runs.

And as long as the Angels are healthy, they will win 88-91 games. The key to the Angels winning the AL West will be their staring pitching. If that holds up, their offense will score them enough runs to win the AL West.


QUESTION: Why do you hate the media so much?

ANSWER: They are, pathetic, spineless, toadies who are willing to toe not one, but two company lines in order to do their 'jobs'. They offer no new baseball knowledge or information and they simply suck at their jobs. You can count on one hand the number of decent baseball analysts working in traditional media outlets - and not one of them is an A's beat writer.

Point of fact, the A's beat writers are so bad that Michael Lewis went out and wrote a (fragmented) book on the A's approach to baseball that a legion of beat writers, columnists and experts could never get across.

It seems one of the prerequisites for being an A's beat writer or columnist is to have limited knowledge of sports, particularly baseball, and be willing to write, almost verbatim whatever comes out of the A's organization's representative's mouth.

Which is what you should think of when you read interviews and quotes; is this new information or is the writer just acting as the mouthpiece for whatever Billy Beane and the A's want to be heard? How many interviews have you read with Billy Beane or David Forst that you scratch your head and wonder...'didn't I read this back in 1998?' Change some of the player names and it gets very Twilight Zone'ish.

More often than not, you're reading exactly what the A's want you to read and the mouthpiece just happens to have access to the audio content first hand. That's not reporting, that's not writing, that's just recording.


QUESTION: What is the reason for the A's winning lately?

ANSWER: Playing teams worse than them and having other teams swinging early in the count. Scoring a few runs doesn't hurt. Honestly, the A's have won a few series and that is great. It's tremendous. But, that's what they are supposed to do. When they start sweeping series and dominating lesser teams, then I'll be impressed. Here's the breakdown of the A's opponents in June:
CURRENT RECORDS

AL	W	L	PCT	HOME	ROAD
Tampa Bay	26	50	.342	18-21	8-29
Seattle	33	41	.446	19-20	14-21
NL	W	L	PCT	HOME	ROAD
Washington	44	31	.587	26-10	18-21
Atlanta	41	34	.547	24-12	17-22
Philadelphia	39	37	.513	23-16	16-21
NY Mets	37	38	.493	22-15	15-23
San Francisco	30	44	.405	17-22	13-22

RECORD BY GAME

DATE	TEAM	RESULT	A's	OPP
Wed. 1	Tampa Bay	W 11-2	20-32	19-35
Thu. 2	Toronto	W 5-3	21-32	28-26
Fri. 3	Toronto	L 6-2	21-33	29-26
Sat. 4	Toronto	W 5-2	22-33	29-27
Sun. 5	Toronto	W 12-4	23-33	29-28
Tue. 7	at Washington	L 2-1	23-34	32-26
Wed. 8	at Washington	L 7-2	23-35	33-26
Thu. 9	at Washington	L 4-3	23-36	34-26
Fri. 10	at Atlanta	W 6-4	24-36	31-29
Sat. 11	at Atlanta	L 5-3	24-37	32-29
Sun. 12	at Atlanta	W 11-5	25-37	32-30
Tue. 14	NY Mets	W 5-0	26-37	32-32
Wed. 15	NY Mets	W 3-2	27-37	32-33
Thu. 16	NY Mets	L 9-6	27-38	33-33
Fri. 17	Philadelphia	L 6-1	27-39	38-30
Sat. 18	Philadelphia	W 2-1	28-39	38-31
Sun. 19	Philadelphia	W 5-2	29-39	38-32
Mon. 20	at Seattle	W 6-2	30-39	31-37
Tue. 21	at Seattle	W 4-2	31-39	31-38
Wed. 22	at Seattle	L 5-4	31-40	32-38
Thu. 23	at Seattle	W 5-0	32-40	32-39
Fri. 24	San Francisco	W 4-3	33-40	30-42
Sat. 25	San Francisco	W 6-3	34-40	30-43
Sun. 26	San Francisco	W 16-0	35-40	30-44

In short, the A's caught two average teams at a good time, got pummeled by a pretty good team and beat some bad teams.

That's not a reason to feel better about the next 88 games or the last 74. It is a reason to breath a little easier, though, and that is note worthy.

QUESTION: Why the spelling errors and late updates?

ANSWER: I have a day job that takes roughly 60 hours out of my week. I have been trying to utilize some of the new tools we are integrating at work, such as the 'Talk and Type' and the remote document publishing. Often, I don't get a chance to review anything for 90 minutes to five hours after it has been posted. So, it's a struggle.

Often, I'll start a post, then save it to work on something, and it gets pushed aside.

So, yes, I could do with some time management skill development.