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Game 4: Happy Harden Day!
2008-04-02 09:16
by Ken Arneson

The A's only managed three hits and no walks last night (or even last night) against Daisuke Matsuzaka & Co. Unlike the opener in Japan, Dice-K was on his game, throwing strikes with multiple pitches. When a team relies on the walk as much as the A's do, you can go a long way toward beating them simply by throwing the ball over the plate. Throw strikes with some zip on it, and the A's are putty in your hands. Except for a lone Jack Cust home run, the A's were simply overpowered last night, despite another good pitching effort by Joe Blanton.

Hopefully, it will be the Red Sox' turn to be overpowered this afternoon when Rich Harden takes to the mound. Will Travis Buck ever get a hit? I'd be concerned about that, but then I saw that David Ortiz is hitless this year, too. Can that possibly last another day? If the A's can escape a four-game series with Boston without being hurt by Big Papi, they should consider themselves very fortunate.

Red Sox at Oakland, 12:35pm

Comments
2008-04-02 12:21:41
1.   Ken Arneson
Lineups:

Boston
Pedroia 2b
Youkilis 1b
Ortiz dh
Ramirez lf
Lowell 3b
Drew rf
Varitek c
Crisp cf
Cora ss

Lester p

Oakland
Ellis 2b
Barton 1b
Sweeney dh
Cust lf
Brown rf
Crosby ss
Suzuki c
Hannahan 3b
Denorfia cf

Harden p

2008-04-02 12:22:42
2.   Ken Arneson
Buck takes a seat today. Guess he'll have to wait for that first hit.
2008-04-02 12:26:21
3.   toni
I like Denorfia over Sweeney... but man oh man that outfield defense is not very good. Hopefully Denorfia has his running shoes on.

Barton in the the hole is interesting.

2008-04-02 12:28:43
4.   Ken Arneson
3 I guess they figure/hope/pray that with Harden pitching, there aren't going to be a lot of balls hit in the air.
2008-04-02 12:30:37
5.   Ken Arneson
I was just watching this old Apple ad with Jeff Goldblum, where they slowed the film down and it made him sound drunk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQmK1CnwOUI

We should do the same thing with Ray Fosse.

2008-04-02 12:38:51
6.   Ken Arneson
Yuck. Harden's control doesn't look too good.
2008-04-02 12:41:56
7.   toni
well... this hasn't started as well as I had hoped.

Please just keep Ortiz quiet for one more day.

2008-04-02 12:44:13
8.   toni
oh man, this is really getting dicey. and not what I wanted to hear from Ken, reliving Harden's first start against the Sox.

Ken are you watching the game? Is he getting squeezed?

2008-04-02 12:47:52
9.   Ken Arneson
No, he's not getting squeezed. He's just missing the strike zone.
2008-04-02 12:48:47
10.   Ken Arneson
Whew!
2008-04-02 12:50:12
11.   Ken Arneson
That 3-2 changeup to Lowell was awesome.
2008-04-02 13:09:40
12.   Ken Arneson
Whew, a fly ball to Cust, and he caught it. I cringe every time a ball is hit to him.
2008-04-02 13:12:20
13.   Philip Michaels
I'd love to be listening in, but MLB's Gameday Audio is not even going through the charade of working. So instead I'm listening to the lovely hold music* on the Customer Support line.

* Music is not lovely at all.

2008-04-02 13:12:33
14.   Ken Arneson
I really dig the new A's commercial with all those 70s clips.
2008-04-02 13:12:53
15.   toni
I hate when work interfers with my listening pleasure :)

and phew!!!

now if only we could generate a bit of offense.

We should be hammering Lester.

2008-04-02 13:18:30
16.   toni
14 Perhaps I'm just really cynical but the marketing campaign has sucked, er been extremely lacking so far this year. Not the actual commercials, I got to watch them online - though I don't really care for the A's in the neighborhood, but I've seen all of one ad for the A's. And I believe it's the one you're talking about Ken, which completely rocks.

But the lack of ads is disturbing. I've seen half a dozen "gamer" travesties for the Giants.

Yes indeedy, Zito is a gamer.

2008-04-02 13:21:39
17.   underdog
I'm watching some of this game as I'm working at home today. But it's making me a little sleepy. Tell them to speed it up, willya? Or maybe it's the announcers who are making me sleepy.

16 Don't forget "All Out. All Season."

Never was an ad campaign truer than that one.

2008-04-02 13:22:43
18.   Philip Michaels
13 And... after waiting on hold for 20 minutes... they disconnected me.

So now I'm calling back to cancel my subscription.

2008-04-02 13:27:52
19.   Ken Arneson
Aargh. Double plays. The spirit of Ben Grieve lives.
2008-04-02 13:29:10
20.   Ken Arneson
16 Maybe the A's didn't make any commercials because they had no friggin' clue who was going to be on the team.
2008-04-02 13:54:27
21.   Ken Arneson
The ofer is gone for Ortiz.
2008-04-02 13:56:35
22.   Ken Arneson
And Manny whiffs. Wheeeee! This is fun.
2008-04-02 14:08:01
23.   Ken Arneson
boo. harden day is over
2008-04-02 14:15:35
24.   toni
like Brown plunking Lowell, I don't know why I just do.

Embree in makes me really, really nervous though.

2008-04-02 14:17:04
25.   toni
23 goodness I hope it's just erring on the side of caution and not Harden feeling discomfort somewhere.

With the lack of offense or even hits it's been a fairly high stress game.

2008-04-02 14:21:10
26.   Ken Arneson
another escape act. now let's see if we can get someone on base and not hit into a double play.
2008-04-02 14:31:37
27.   toni
One can always hope the Sox decide to retaliate and drill a couple A's. At least we'd get someone on base.
2008-04-02 14:35:11
28.   underdog
Nice hustle there, Manny. Sheesh.
2008-04-02 14:35:59
29.   toni
sigh... I'd give into my potty mouth, but this website seems a bit too classy for that.

Embree, maybe you shouldn't challenge the hitters quite so much.

2008-04-02 14:37:12
30.   Ken Arneson
I knew Ortiz was due.
2008-04-02 14:52:18
31.   toni
ken... I didn't realize Harden had left with the trainer, Ken and Vince haven't said anything. Did you see anything to be concerned about?
2008-04-02 15:07:30
32.   Ken Arneson
31 No, not really. He didn't look particularly distressed when they showed him in the bottom of the fifth.
2008-04-02 15:20:09
33.   Ken Arneson
Yowza, the A's offense is awful.
2008-04-02 15:26:24
34.   toni
we need to sign Bonds.

Actually I knew our offense would have trouble scoring runs, I'm just a little surprised we're having this much trouble.

2008-04-02 15:30:51
35.   toni
What the .... is wrong with Street?
2008-04-02 18:34:21
36.   jmoney
I went to the game today. It was kind of depressing. The A's never even really threatened to score. Our lineup is not good. When Ortiz hit the home run, the air went out of the ballpark. Well, the air would have gone out of the ballpark, except the ballpark was full of Red Sox fans. God I hate Red Sox fans.
2008-04-03 18:13:10
37.   Ravenscar
Kate Smith is glad she's dead and doesn't have to listen to herself singing this song anymore. Can't we please use a different version?

If Abreu can run into a wall, anything's possible.

2008-04-03 18:13:31
38.   Ravenscar
oh crap, sorry guys, wrong place!

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