Idiots Write About Sports

You wouldn’t expect to find me this calm, cool and collected the day after an extra-innings loss to the hated Red Sox, but calm, cool and collected I am. The loss didn’t bother me in the least. As Johnny Damon crossed the plate last night, I didn’t break things, I didn’t kick the sofa, I didn’t even frighten the cats with my screaming.

So what explains this newfound equanimity — a healthy sense of perspective? Intensive therapy sessions? Self-delusion? Really good booze?

No, no, possibly, and oh Lord, yes. But I think I’m OK with the result of last night’s game simply because the A’s found themselves on the wrong end of yet another shellacking and, instead of curling into a pillbug-like ball, they fought their way back into the game. You can’t win ‘em all, certainly, but at the very least, you like to see the team you pull for play for nine innings as if the idea of winning is within the realm of possibility.

Or maybe you missed the first two games of the series. The moment the Sox jumped out to early, if not necessarily insurmountable, leads, too many Oakland players looked like they were mentally debating which movies to order on SpectraVision once they got back to the hotel that night.

And that’s happened far too much this season. Last month, the wife and I attended a game over in Anaheim, in which the Angels jumped out to a 1-0 lead after two innings — and the A’s responded as if they were trailing by 50. Dropped fly balls, slumped shoulders, half-hearted swings as if each batter remembered they were late for an appointment back in the dugout — just a dreadful game that drove us to the exits shortly after the Seventh-Inning Stretch. We may have spent more time in SoCal traffic than we did at the game itself. The gridlock was certainly more enjoyable.

So I got to thinking during the early innings of last night’s game, when the A’s were still swinging at Curt Schilling’s pitches as if they were trying to ward off insects, am I just dwelling on the negative here? Or, once they fall behind in a game, do the A’s shrivel up and die?

In an immediately arbitary and unscientific search, I went through Oakland’s 2004 schedule and counted up all the games when they trailed after six innings — a total of 32 contests, including last night’s game. The A’s came back to win eight times; the other 24 they lost. (Although to be fair, that total includes two instances — last night’s game and an April tilt against Seattle — where the A’s rallied to tie, only to lose in extra innings.)

So what does this prove? I have no idea. After all, you’d figure that most teams are going to have losing records when trailing after six innings, since it’s hard to come from behind when you’ve got only nine outs left. To get any sort of accurate read, I’d have to go through the schedules of every team to see how they’ve fared so far this year when they’re behind after six innings to get any sort of accurate idea as to whether the A’s performance is below or above average. And I just don’t have the time to do that. A cursory search of the Internet uncovered this July 2 Orioles recap in which we learn that Baltimore is 5-30 when trailing after six and this June 7 article recounting how the Arizona Diamondbacks scored their first comeback win from a sxith-inning deficit after running up an 0-29 record.

Baltimore and Arizona — those are two teams you really want to compare yourselves to when you have playoff aspirations, huh?

And that’s the problem, I think. I don’t know what percentage of games that playoff-bound teams win when they’re trailing after six innings, but something tells me it’s more than the 25 percent that Oakland has won this year. And considering that the A’s aren’t as successful as they should be when leading after six innings — thank you, 15 blown saves! — you have to wonder whether they should be making plans for October if they have trouble mounting comebacks and protecting leads.

But enough negativity. The A’s are emphasizing the positive, and so I will I. Yeah, I’d rather have a win. But after two days of watching Oakland pack it in, I’ll take a game in which the team shows at least as much interest in winning as I have.

[Update: You know, these “There is honor sometimes in defeat” musings carry a whole lot more weight when your bullpen doesn’t blow another goddamned lead in the ninth. I’d feel a lot better about all this if, every time the A’s were setting themselves on fire, Ken Macha looked more like a major-league manager and less like a guy waiting for his car to get fixed. You know?]

I think you're obsessing on the wrong detail. The problem is with definition. The cold, hard fact of the matter is that winning teams generally don't have to come back from sixth-inning deficits all that often because they are the ones doing the leading. So yeah, it's annoying if your team isn't fighting back to win, but it's only a symptom of a bigger problem. You can't really improve your comeback stats -- they'll always suck -- but you can cut down on the number of times you're in that situation.