CHAVEZ' WINDOW SERVICE

                1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9    R  H  E
                -  -  -   -  -  -   -  -  -    -  -  -
Angels          1  0  1   2  0  0   0  0  0    4 10  0
Athletics       0  1  0   6  0  0   0  0  X    7  7  1

Eric Chavez regularly does some window shopping in batting practice. The luxury boxes (brought to you by Al Davis and the forces of greed) are Plexiglas for a reason.

Last night Chavez banged one off the CENTERFIELD glass that was a grossly underestimated by ESPN at 460 feet from homeplate. Look, it's 400 feet to dead center. The luxury seats are a good 70 feet above that. They are 25 feet beyond the fence. There was a wind anywhere from 5-8 MPH. From differing reports, the ball was clearly not on its accelerated decline. You don't have to be a rocket scientist (or a rocket trajectorist) to figure out that 460, doesn't cut it. If anyone has the time if you want to monkey with the Home Run Calculator that would be great. Either that or play homerun derby on any of the many video games and bounce one of the glass at the Net and tell us what it measures. Those have to be really accurate. They're in a video game.

CHAVEZ BLASTS THE A'S BACK TO REALITY

After several days of acting like they had linguini instead of bats, the A's did some yard work last night. Mark Ellis, who can be recognized as the taller A's bat-boy, popped one out in the 2nd to knot things up at 1-1.

Chavez's blast came on the first pitch after Miguel Tejada continued his light hitting infielder impression (which has gone on long enough) by grounding out to third.

It rocked Callaway. He tossed up two balls that looked like they were 85-MPH fastballs. Dye fouled off a pitch before launching a 420-foot shot to left. Callaway walked Mabry on six pitches and then hit Ellis on the forearm as Ellis was heading toward the ground.

Yes, it looked like Callaway was throwing at Ellis.

Cool!

Anything to get this rivalry into high gear.

Terrence Long hit an RBI single on the first pitch to right center. Great. But, try taking a strike next time or at least take one pitch. It shows incredible impatience by swinging at the first pitch off a reliever. Sure, the reliever is probably going to try and get a head with a first pitch strike. But, for the most part, relievers are relievers because they didn't cut it as a starter or as a closer and have trouble throwing strikes.

End of rant.

Greg Myers struck out looking:

Pitch 1: Strike, swinging 

Pitch 2: Ball 

Pitch 3: Strike, swinging 

Pitch 4: Strike, swinging 

Oy!

Ray Durham concluded the scoring by hitting a three run Jimmy Jack that barely cleared the left-field scoreboard. It was only Durham's second homerun off a left-hander hitting right handed this year.

MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE

Barry Zito could not find his high horse last night and looked wobbly. He still got the win, but he wasn't Barry Zito. Will someone get the lad a set of earmuffs? Anytime Barry is surrounded by talk about peripheral activities he, well, he stinks. The All-Star game, winning 20, the first AL starter with 22 (and matching Mulder form last year). Of course, drop him into Yankee Stadium at age 22 with the Division Series and he'll be lights out. Ask him to shut down the Yankees to win the Division Series and he'll give up just one run on two hits through eight innings.

Odd.

We're all at our prospective jobs, today. But, we'll be writing in as we listen in and watch the game on its webcast.