Idiots Write About Sports

You see a lot of posts on assorted baseball blogs about the sense of promise and spirit of unfettered optimism that comes on Opening Day. And maybe you would have read the same sort of thing on this baseball blog… had I not waited until after today’s A’s-O’s opener. Indifferent starting pitching, anemic offense — at this point, we should be planning our September callups for early June.

Yes, yes, it’s one game. And at this point last year, the A’s were 1-0, after dramatic eighth inning comeback against the Texas Rangers. The A’s bats were humming, new closer Arthur Rhodes looked like the real deal, and we ended the day in first place? And you know what that game got us? A second-place finish one game behind Anaheim instead of the more dispiriting two. So one can look quite foolish by insisting that one game out of 162 sets any sort of tone.

Still, there are troubling signs. If this is supposed to be the year that Barry Zito rekindles that Cy Young form — and the funny papers seem to suggest that it needs to be — then you can’t be too happy with today’s performance. On the surface, six hits, three walks, three strikeouts, and four earned runs in six innings of work isn’t necessarily terrible — though it isn’t great if you have visions of Ace-itude. But when you consider how those four runs came about, Zito’s performance is even worse.

Zito’s big problems last year could be summed up thusly: 1) he fell behind in counts too often; 2) he walked too many guys; and 3) he gave up too many homers. Because I was nominally working while today’s game was going on, I didn’t have a chance to see whether Zito got ahead of batters or not, though 101 pitches in six innings with only three strikeouts to show for it does not suggest a pitcher mowing down the opposition with ruthless efficiency. But the Orioles’ first pair of runs came courtesy of a walk to Jay Gibbons, followed a batter later by a Luis Matos home run. The Orioles scratched out another run in the third when Miguel Tejada drew a one-out walk, advanced to third on a Sammy Sosa single and scored on a sacrifice fly.

Detecting a trend here? When you give guys automatic passes to first, it increases the likelihood that bad things happen when subsequent batters put the ball in play. And when you wait until the fifth inning to strike out your first batter, you aren’t going to snuff out too many rallies.

Then again, Zito could have held the Orioles to one run, and Oakland still would have lost. That tends to happen when you leave 10 runners on base and your only extra-base hit comes from the guy you’re planning ship off to Triple-A the minute you need a fifth starter.

The A’s just played stupid, uninspired baseball today. Take that Marco Scutaro double in the sixth. The very next batter, Nick Swisher, ropes one to the right center field gap that Sosa manages to catch on the run. I’m thinking, well, at least that moves Scutaro up to third base and puts some pressure on the Orioles not to make a wild pitch or any other mistake that brings the runner home — except that Scutaro didn’t tag up. He was halfway to third when Sosa caught the ball, so he had to trot back to second.

The question is, why? If Sosa doesn’t catch the ball, it’s rolling to the wall and Scutaro scores easily. If he does catch it, the momentum of catching the ball on the run is going to prevent him from turning around and making a forceful peg to third. A runner of moderate speed and intelligence should be able to advance, no matter what happens on that play.

I know this. You know this. Why does it always seem to catch A’s baserunners by surprise?

You hate to draw a comparison from such a small sample size, but today’s game was eeirly similar to the the spring training game I saw back in March — the only other A’s game I’ve witnessed in its entirety in 2005. That game was marked by studied indifference from Oakland’s hitters. Despite a starting lineup in which eight of the nine positions were filled by players who made the opening day roster, the A’s managed only eight hits against Anaheim’s B team. And the only hard-hit balls of the day came from minor leaguers John Baker and Matt Watson in scrub time. The rest of the hitting was the same parade of scattered singles and dinky infield hits you saw at Camden Yards today.

I know the A’s offense is capable of putting runs on the board. But it would be nice to have a little empirical evidence to reward my faith.

If you watched Zito in ST, he was having trouble with command even then. Unable to locate his curve, hitters waited on his not-so-fastball, and punished him heavily. To me, this says more of 2004 and less of 2001. Zito's a good guy and has been an excellent pitcher, but for whatever reason, he's fallen apart amazingly quickly. (Now watch, he'll get it together and contend for the Cy Young again now that I've said that.)

"Now watch, he'll get it together and contend for the Cy Young again now that I've said that."

From your keyboard to God's LCD.

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