Idiots Write About Sports

Let’s start out with the positives about Sunday’s game. Brandon Webb is a really good pitcher — really enjoyable to watch. Barry Zito is also quite good — only 8 innings worth of good, apparently, but good nevertheless. The weather was lovely, my gametime companion was a delight, and the blowhard pontificating about Eric Byrnes’ fantastic hustle piped down after an inning or so. Oh, and no one on the A’s security payroll prevented me from going to my seat — that’s four games in a row without incident now. So that’s a plus.
And now the bad…
I hate to keep playing the whole This Isn’t a Very Smart Ballclub card, but… well… this isn’t a very smart ballclub. Luis Gonzalez hit a ball in the seventh inning that probably left his bat an 85-degree angle — a straight-up in the air pop fly to lef field. Bobby Crosby motors out, Nick Swisher motors in. Crosby holds out his hand in the internationally recognized symbol for “I got it” … and the ball falls right in between them. It’s Swisher’s play, of course, since he’s the one running in on the ball, but if you’re going to call someone off, Croz, it’s a pretty good idea to follow that up by catching the ball. Fortunately, Gonzo was immediately retired on a 4-6-3 double-play — at least you got that one, Bob — but that doesn’t change the fact that Crosby should have to wear a dunce cap for the opener of the Detroit series.
This is the second game in a row where Dan Johnson was faced with a challenging-though-not-exactly-unmakable play for a competent major league fielder. Conclusion: Dan Johnson is not a competent major league fielder. And the quicker the A’s realize this, the quicker they can factor it into whatever midseason acquisition plans are currently percolating inside Billy Beane’s gray matter.
But these are just hors d’ overs to the main course of dopey baseball served up by Ken Macha. Let’s skip ahead to the ninth inning. Zito is over the 100-pitch mark — not so much that you need to yank him right away, but to the point where he requires close observation. Indeed, Huston Street is warming up in the bullpen, indicating that the A’s intend to relieve Zito at the first sign of trouble.
That sign came fairly early. Johnson blundered Chad Tracy’s grounder, allowing Tracy to reach. Coner Jackson followed that up by smoking a double that advanced Tracy to third. Time to remove Zito? I thought so, but Macha remained rooted to the dugout steps.
A Gonzalez grounder that fails to plate the runner is followed up by an intentional walk to Johnny Estrada. And now, I don’t care what you think about Macha’s decision to leave Zito in — with the bases loaded, it’s time to take your chances with Street. Despite three double-plays earlier in the day, Zito’s outs tend to be recorded via the fly ball. Also, he relies on the curve — a pitch that doesn’t always cross the plate in the strike zone. And Zito had been nibbling around the plate all day — 0-2 counts quickly ran up to 3-2 when Arizona batters refused to chase pitches clearly off the plate. Thank Zito for his hard work, and bring in Street who’s a better bet to get a strikeout or a ground ball, which is what you need to keep the score tied.
And yet… Macha left Zito in. And I think the reason he did was to give Zito the chance to get the win, rather than, at the very best, record a no-decision. If that’s so — if that at any way entered in to Macha’s thinking — then he should be summarily fired. Because his job isn’t to get Barry Zito wins; it’s to get the A’s wins, even if it means yanking your starter in the ninth inning of a tie ballgame if he’s not your best option to get out of a bases loaded jam.
But Zito stayed in and, predictably, issued a five-pitch walk to Shawn Green. That was followed up by a sacrifice fly — A fly ball out? From Zito? Really? Who’d-a thunk? — which is when Macha finally manaaged to free himself from the chain holding him in place in the dugout while the game disintegrated around him. Excellent timing Ken — really smart use of Street there to nail down that last out now that the A’s are down by two and facing a very unhittable Brandon Webb. Superb allocation the resources at your disposal. But maybe, next time, leave a clearly exhausted Zito to twist in the wind until after he’s given up five runs. That way, the ninth inning comeback will be much more dramatic.
Another complaint about Macha: right now, Nick Swisher and Mark Kotsay are doing nothing worthwhile at the plate. Both are swinging the bat terribly and any base hit at this point is going to be by accident instead of by design. Both could stand some time off, but unfortunatley, given the strains on the roster right now, that’s just not going to happen. Still, when you’ve got two guys who are just going horribly, why have them bat one right after the other? And while bat both in the top third of the lineup? But that’s exactly what Macha did, resulting in an 0-for-8 day from his No. 2 and No. 3 hitters.
I don’t wish to say anything that will rile up aznemesis, who is the only person kind enough to post here anymore, but the Diamondbacks were the least impressive NL West team of the non-orange-and-black variety that the A’s played this year. And Oakland got swept. By a team that had just gone through a 3-20 stretch. The first two games were one thing — Arizona just pitched and played better. But Sunday’s loss was a winnable game that the A’s lost because of dumb play and poor managing. That this is becoming a leitmotif for the 2006 season is hopefully causing at least one person in the Oakland front office as much irritation as it’s causing me.