by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

The distance from Boston to Oakland is 3,094 miles, or 4,979 kilometers. The only countries in the world that do not use the metric system are Burma, Liberia and the United States of America. But in baseball distance, from Boston to Oakland it might as well be from planet Earth to planet Jupiter.

The Red Sox signed Pablo Sandoval this past winter for $95 million contract, to play third base. Pablo has committed seven errors, last one a key error that keyed an 8-4 lost to the Minnesota Twins, they benched him, he was out of the lineup last night.The Oakland A’s have a 24-year old rookie shortstop Marcus Semien, who lead the majors with 19 errors, and they hired famed two-time-AL pennant champion ex-Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington just to tutor Semien.

The Athletics fielding problem goes further than the 24-year old San Francisco native Marcus Semien. The team has played 57 games and committed 57 errors. Even with the great pitching headed by Cy Young candidate Sonny Gray, the errors have an effect on pitchers. A pitcher can make the best pitch in the world a ground ball to short for a double play but if the shortstop cannot field the ball…

Marcus Semien probably will not break the record in a season for a shortstop, Joe Sullivan (Washington) in 1893 committed 102 errors that’s the most for a shortstop in both leagues, in the American League a guy named John Gochnaur committed 98 errors with Cleveland in 1903.

This difference in baseball attitudes is not only about errors but baseball in general. The east coast takes their baseball much more seriously than we do here on the west coast, after all the game was invented in the east coast, so it has it’s roots there. Like I mentioned in previous articles, in Boston the Red Sox are not about selling Panda Bears to the fans, they are about winning every day, the only souvenir they really want is a title and the Commissioner’s trophy.

Another difference so far between the A’s and the Red Sox this season, the Red Sox are a payroll-rich market team and they are expected to win their division, and manager John Farrell is under great pressure right now. We cannot say the same about A’s skipper Bob Melvin, although he is definitely not happy with his team performance so far, he is not going to get fired, because under the Athletics system its not the manager that usually goes, its the player.

The Oakland Athletics have about a month (maybe a little less)to get their season in shape, or the sale of players is coming before the Macy’s White Flower day sale. The names already mentioned in rumors: Scott Kazmir, Tyler Clippard, Ben Zobrist, and possibly others. The Boston Red Sox? They will probably go for a big time pitcher like Philadelphia Cole Hamels, unless the first place Houston Astros can get to him, and the Astros might just have the young players terrible Philadelphia is looking for.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for the A’s and Spanish TV voice for the Angels and does News and Commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com