Month: September 2017

Oakland Athletics’ Boog Powell (3) follows the flight of his two-run home run against the Houston Astros during the eighth inning of a baseball game, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2017, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/D. Ross Cameron)

by Jerry Feitelberg

Boston- The Oakland A’s coming off a sweep of the Houston Astros and winners of five straight, are on their way to Boston to face the AL East division leader, the Boston Red Sox. The A’s had lost eight of nine before beating the Angels last Wednesday. The lost all six on the road and the first two games of the home stand.The young and powerful A’s did not have any trouble scoring runs, but the pitching couldn’t keep the opponents off the scoreboard. All that changed this past weekend as the A’s pounded the Astros’ pitching and the pitching kept the Astros from scoring.

For many of the young A’s hitters, it will be their first trip to Fenway Park. The A’s are hitting homers. They have over 200 so far, and they are led by Khris Davis, Ryon Healy, Matt Chapman, and Chad Pinder are leading the way from the right side, and Matt Olson and Matt Joyce are the big boppers from the left side of the plate. Fenway Park has very unusual dimensions. The distance down both lines is slightly over 300 feet. The problem for the right-hand hitters will be hitting the ball over the 37-foot high wall aka the Green Monster. For the lefty hitters, if they can pull the ball down the line, it will be an easy home run. However, the distance increases to 380 feet quite rapidly, and it takes a big blast to put the ball out of the park.

The other problem the A’s have is that they cannot win on the road. The A’s at home are 42-33 but have a woeful road record of 21-47. The Red Sox, on the other hand, need to win. They are in a dogfight with the New York Yankees for the top spot in the East. The Sox do not have the big boppers in the lineup this year. The Sox have hit 146 home runs, and that is about 40 homers below the league average. They have several excellent players. They are led by the veteran Dustin Pedroia. Pedroia has missed a lot of games due to injury, but the slack has been taken up by Eduardo Nunez. Nunez came over to the Red Sox in a trade with the SF Giants. Rafael Devers is manning third base. He is just 20 years ago and made a big splash when he came. He had his first slump of his career but seems to be hitting much better now. Xander Bogaerts is at short, and Mitch Moreland platoons at first base with Hanley Ramirez. The Red Sox have Andrew Benintendi in left, Jackie Bradley, Jr in center and Mookie Betts in right field. Sandy Leon and Christian Vasquez handle the catching.

The pitching matchups for the series will see Sean Manaea pitch Tuesday night against Eduardo Rodriguez. Manaea beat the Angels last Wednesday in Oakland. He went six innings and no runs while earning his tenth win of the year. Rodriguez, also a lefty, is 4-5 with an ERA of 4.33. Rodriguez has scuffled most of the season, but he had a good outing last week as he allowed just six hits and 2 runs in six innings of work. Rodriguez is 1-0 against the A’s lifetime with an ERA of just 1.69.

The second game of the series will feature Jharel Cotton going against Boston’s Doug Fister. Cotton’s record is 7-10, and he has an ERA of 5.82. In his last outing, Cotton gave up seven runs in five innings of work. He continues to give up the gopher ball. In his last outing, he was hammered three times. He has given up 12 big flys in his last 33 2/3rds innings. Fister was plucked off the waiver wire from the LA Angels. Everyone thought Fister was done. Fister has shown that he is not ready to close the book on his career. With the Red Sox, he is 5-2 and has an ERA of 2.79. Overall he is 5-7 for the year, and his ERA stands at 3.91. In three of his last starts, he gave up runs in the first inning, but settled down and was able to pick up three wins.

The Thursday game will feature righty Daniel Gossett going against the lefty, Drew Pomeranz.Gossett beat the Astros on Saturday as he allowed just one run in six plus innings and struck out seven. Pomeranz, a former Oakland Athletic, has found a home in Boston as he is having the best year of his career. His overall record is 15-5, and his ERA is 3.35. He is also pitching very well in Boston. Fenway Park is notorious for being a nightmare for left-handed pitchers. Lefties have to keep the ball down and away to right-hand hitters. If they come inside, there’s a good chance that pitch will either be off the wall or over it. Pomeranz is 8-2 at Fenway. Pomeranz has faced the A’s just once since leaving the team. In his only game against Oakland earlier this year, he gave up one earned run in the four innings that he pitched.

It should be a fantastic series. The Red Sox figured that this might be a breather for them. That was two months ago. They cannot take the A’s lightly. This young team is starting to come together, and if the A’s get any kind of pitching, the series could be a barn burner.

Oakland Athletics’ Matt Olson, right, celebrates with Ryon Healy (25) after hitting a two-run home run in the sixth inning of the second baseball game of a doubleheader against the Houston Astros, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

By London Marq

OAKLAND–On September 9th, The Oakland Athletics host a doubleheader with the AL West leading Houston Astros. Doubleheaders in professional baseball have been popular since around the since the 1880’s. Originally used to make up games cancelled by weather conditions. Today though are seemingly used up make scheduling/traveling easier and make up rained out games.

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey we’ve seen numerous sports teams on the southern United States cancel or reschedule games. In the MLB no team has been more effected than the Houston Astros. The were unfortunate to have homes games not only postponed, but some were moved to neutral sites. Others turned into double headers, such as the first game in Houston after Harvey had passed.

Controversy ensued when the Texas Rangers refused to swap home games with the Rangers in light of their post season chances. While easy criticism was made of the Rangers choice, from a competitive standpoint it does make sense. Houston already had the benefit of having the best record in the division while the rangers were trying to catch up.

The Athletics Astros doubleheader was a scheduled double header. That is to say that without the tragedies of Mother Nature, they were set to play two games yesterday no matter what. That means that there is an extra day that players have to play twice, which doesn’t make much since if you are really trying to save a small handful of days over the course of a season.

Due to the weather, the Astros schedule was already jumbled. I argue that that they are put at a competitive disadvantage, due to all of the circumstances already. Having a scheduled double header leaves less room for alterations to the schedule. This is why doubleheaders are important and should be used in need only.

Major League Baseball should extend the regular season and only implement double headers when games on the schedule cannot be played or fit into the schedule. You can retain teams home-field advantage this way. And if games need to be postponed longer than just a few days, you can create double headers by attaching them only future series.

The double-header may be apart of baseball history to be preserved. The way we choose to preserve it however, should benefit the teams playing.

London Marq does them all commentary, baseball coverage, and San Jose Earthquakes coverage, at http://www.sportsradioservice.com