Author: lleonardbw

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: Athletics with worst record in the A.L. at All Star break

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–Starting today, Friday July 10, the Oakland Athletics have the worst record in the American League, with 39 wins and 49 loses. They open a three-game series in Cleveland tonight, and even if they win all three(prior to the All Star Break)they will still have the worst record in the league. Today they occupy last place in the division.

What’s on tap for the A’s? Billy Beane probably will already have some trade possibilities/combinations of trades on his desk, and by the end of the month we will know who is staying, who is leaving and who is coming to Oakland. We can only go by the Modus Operandi of the A’s General Manager in the past.
Athletics fans are battle hardened, and they have supported their team(not easy to do with so much instability)and they keep banging the drums in right field, no matter who is wearing the green and gold. You have to admire the A’s fan base, not as big as it once was, but nevertheless they are as loyal fans as you find anyplace. Often 15,000 fans at the OCO make more noise and have more enthusiasm that other places in baseball where they sell at least twice that amount of tickets for every game.

Easy targets to be traded, currently on the A’s roster are pitchers Scott Kazmir, Eric O’Flaherty and Tyler Clippard, super-utility Ben Zobrist, and then there could be a surprise if the A’s can get exactly what they want in return, they might have to part with an establish Athletics player, like Josh Reddick, who is a good left handed hitter and can help a bunch of teams looking for a good outfielder. Teams who are in the pennant race. In a couple of weeks it will be the anniversary of the A’s trading Yoenis Cespedes for Jon Lester, when they went “for broke”hoping to advance to the World Series, however Kansas City had other plans. There probably is only one untouchable player with this 2015 Oakland A’s, ace and All Star pitcher Sonny Gray; after that, everybody else is not very secure. A player a few years ago(which I will not mention)told me “when you come here, you should always be ready to get traded”.

We have already passed the first half of the season mathematically speaking. After the All Star break, the A’s have a total of 71 games left, no more no less, to conclude the 2015 regular season. Last year today, the national baseball media were talking of the A’s, “as the best team in baseball”, today everybody is expecting the sale of players to begin soon.

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

San Francisco Giants podcast with Michael Duca: Giants meet the Mets and reviewing where to improve

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by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–Right now the Giants are not scoring, it’s kind of hard to win if you don’t score they got awfully good pitching from Chris Heston on Monday night in spite of losing their seventh straight game at AT&T Park. All things being equal, they put two guys on in the first inning and they got two double play balls and they didn’t complete one of the double plays because Hester dropped the ball.

Hestor just kind of sailed through the middle innings there’s nothing wrong with the Giants pitching right per say but the bullpen is having a rough go with an ERA was over six. Giants reliever Santiago Casilla is not right. The Giants don’t know what’s missing there. Casilla came in Monday night against the Mets with runners on second and third and nobody out and held the score at zero.

The Mets catcher Johnny Monell in the top of the ninth who had been a minor leaguer for about 100 years for the Giants goes down on two strikes immediately on two breaking pitches and Casilla can’t throw his fast ball for a strike. Throws three pitches out of the zone and runs up a 3-2 count he has to come in with something and throws a nothing fast ball a 100 MPH fastball that was dead straight lower half of the zone Monell turned on it hits it down the line in right field for two RBIs and that was basically your ball game.

There is only so far you can go with spare parts and you have to remember when your missing Hunter Pence, Nori Aoki, and to be honest when your practically missing Angel Pagan the guy has 300 at bats and no home runs this year. Pagan’s defense has been miserable for the last couple of weeks. He’s been playing like he’s a secret agent for the Dodgers.

If your promoting your bench players into your starting line up A. Your starting line up isn’t as strong as it was. B. You got no where to go and your bench is now not there, because your bench is starting players like Ryan Lollis (no hits, one stolen base in five ball games), that’s not going to be a recipe for success for the course of the season. You might be able to get away with it for a little while but they’ve been without Pence for half the season, they’ve been without an effective Pagan for the better part of a third of a season, their going to miss a quarter of a season from Aoki about 30 plus games.

Michael Duca does Giants commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast below

Oakland A’s podcast with Charlie O: Don’t let Sonny Gray pitch in the All-Star game, save a player, save an arm

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by Charlie O Mallonee

NEW YORK–A’s starting pitcher Sonny Gray is the key of the A’s staff and has literally lifted this team and put them on his back and carried this team with that 9-3, 2.90 ERA record. They have done very well even though Gray missed the last two starts because of a case of salmonella. However Gray is back in the saddle today. Gray started Tuesday and one thing about him is the fact that him being in the rotation and being scheduled to pitch on Sunday in Cleveland which everyone assumes he’s ineligible to pitch on Tuesday in Cincinnati by league rules.

That as it turns out is not the case Gray is planning to pitch Sunday is Cleveland and the A’s should absolutely pitch him Sunday in Cleveland because they need all the victories they can give him. Their going to pitch him Sunday in Cleveland but by league rules if the club agrees he can pitch on Tuesday. My initial reaction to that is absolutely no, no, no and just let me repeat myself NO.

The last thing the A’s need to do at this point is take a chance and put Gray in some potential peril and then not have him down the stretch when their trying to get out of last place and their trying to make things happen. However I’m going to temper my no by the fact of doing a little research today is that on Tuesday would be Sonny’s normal day to pitch bullpen in between starts.

So now you come back and you have to make a decision do they let him go ahead and step it up a little bit throw the normal bullpen and let him step it up and let him do a normal inning in the All-Star game in which he’s the most deserved of. My conservative self comes out and says let him go to the game, let him get his jersey, let him get his party bags, let him get everything that goes with it and the bonus from the Oakland A’s.

Then the A’s say, “Sonny wave at all of them and go and sit I in the bullpen and enjoy the guys.” I just don’t think it’s worth the chance, it’s a shame but when your dealing with pitchers it’s always a luck of the draw and in this case it’s not a great draw but the good luck is Sonny’s back the A’s need him let him be known as an All-Star please don’t let him pitch in that All-Star game.

Charlie O does Oakland A’s commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast below

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: How much is television and technology changing baseball?

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–Following baseball all of my adult life,and since the first days as a small kid, the great game of baseball is going through some changes. Three are clocks in all 30 major league parks, so that every half inning moves at the same pace, plus other changes that have have shorten the duration of the games, the replays, the strike-zone. Most of these changes in which technology have been introduced to the games are coming for the benefit of television, which is a huge revenue stream for Major League Baseball.

A couple of years ago Time Warner Cable paid $7 billion dollars to the LA Dodgers for the rights to broadcast their games for the next 20-years. Today we know that they are set to lose $1 billion because Time Warner cable had required other cable distributors to pay an increase in fees. These increases are passed to the viewing public in the huge Southern California television market. The LA Dodgers have also lost a great amount of viewers, because of this discontent by Dodgers fans, many who refuse to pay the extra money to see their favorite team on the tube.

Nevertheless, television is now basically the engine that generates the big bucks in Major League Baseball. At the start of this 2015 season, the MLB Network,a network solely dedicated to baseball is primarily owned by Major League Baseball and is available to 70 million households via cable and satellite television.

All replays of every game(disputed plays)are reviewed from New York, but next season Major League Baseball will open another review location in San Francisco, which will be more convenient, for the late games held here in the west coast, instead of having to go to New York on an extra inning game at Oakland which is at 11:45PM(west coast time)that is reviewed in New York where it is 2:45 in the morning. It makes sense to open this other review office in San Francisco.

But the old saying “we cannot put the toothpaste back inside the tube”, technology is part of our lives. I am personally not a fan of the “replay”which takes a lot of the human factor from this unique game that we love. Yes, we can see the mistakes the umpires make today with this new system of replays, but umpires are human and they will always make mistakes. Teams also make mistakes, they are called “errors”, are we going to change that also in the future? What would baseball look 20 years from today? Would anybody be surprised if umpires are replaced with machines in each base? A lot of bank tellers were replaced by ATM machines. Think about it, more changes are possible and probably 20 years from today baseball will not even look close to the same as today.

This is just my opinion. You might agree or disagree. I am not an enemy of technology, or progress, I like the instant communications, although I do not have to be attached to twitter or instagram.

Baseball is a unique game, it has it own pace, and its own choreography, we should not mess too much with it, or basically it will not be baseball anymore, it could; become some sort of a live video game of we keep making changes.

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

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San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders podcast with David Zizmor Sun Jul 5, 2015

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by David Zizmor

San Francisco 49ers update: 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is a guy whose only looking to improve for the 2015 season he had some success in the league and he certainly has looked good in post season which he demonstrated against the Green Bay Packers a few years ago when he set an NFL rushing record for quarterbacks not just in the playoffs but in the entire history of the NFL.

Kaepernick ran for 180 rushing yards in that Packers playoff game and then in the championship game he won and took them to the Super Bowl, he almost won them a Super Bowl and the following season he beat the Packers in another great post season game. He lost a heartbreaker to the Seattle Seahawks right at the end of regulation.

They made that game close because he ran that game well in the second half, last season a lot of people think he regressed a little bit. His passing numbers were not that great, his rushing numbers were down and he didn’t look quite as good as he had or dynamic as he had in the past. I don’t know if that’s entirely fair, he suffered 55 sacks and that’s a large part of it and that’s because the offensive line didn’t play that well.

Oakland Raiders update: When the Raiders hired a guy like head coach Jack Del Rio your looking for improvement on the defensive side of the ball and that’s what his focus will be on. For Del Rio he’s going to lead the offense and he’s the offensive coordinator not that he’s going to have his fingers all over the offense.

Del Rio is not an offensive guru however he’s the guy known for his defense or let’s say he’s known for his ability to motivate the team. He was able to motivate his team when he was head coach for the Tampa Bay Bucs and they were a team that followed him into battle each week. He’s big on the offensive side of the defense he’s going to rally the troops in Oakland.

The Raiders their a team that’s trying to grow that defense which has been a problem. The offense has some interesting pieces and we talked about this on the show already. They have quarterback Derrek Carr who looks to be a very great young quarterback, they have wide receiver Amari Cooper who they got in the first round in the draft who looks like he’s going to be an excellent receiver.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to his podcast on the 49ers and Raiders below

That’s Amaury’s Podcast, News, and Commentary: Kings-Karl will sort out problems; FBI investigates former Cards scouting director

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–The hole is already dug in at the old downtown mall in Sacramento and with Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson testifying in court that the city didn’t abuse using subsidies to construct in the making of the new Kings arena the project is going to go forward regardless what the plaintiffs in that case say about how the city used public subsidies to pay of the area costs.

Hopefully everything goes right and the Kings can start winning again and Kings head coach George Karl improves his relationship with the Kings DeMarcus Cousins in a famous off season challenge where Karl wanted Cousins traded and Cousins was sought by Boston or the Lakers who both came shopping with their hats in their hands.

Karl was also on the chopping block when the skirmish was taking place when team owner Vivek Ranadive suggested that Karl should be fired if he doesn’t want to cooperate and work with Cousins. Since Kings owner Vivek Ranadive made the suggestion of firing Karl there hasn’t been any further word from either Ranadive, Karl or Cousins and who is staying or going. Karl is very good when it comes to draft picks. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he became a general manager somewhere in the NBA. Karl is someone who I got to work with when he used to coach the Golden State Warriors.

Karl is very savvy when it comes to basketball and he’s a good guy and he wants to win and he’s a very intense head coach. I have a lot of respect for Karl. The Kings and Ranadive also realized what they have and their trying to work things out to a happy medium. You have to stay with him and he knows what he’s doing and he’s not some regular coach he’s a special coach in the NBA and he knows the game inside and out.

FBI continues to investigate Cards into Astros hacking case: With former Cardinals head of scouting Chris Correa out the FBI is continuing their investigation if there were anymore Cardinals that hacked the Astros beside Correa who is accused of allegedly hacking into the Houston Astros scouting records. Hacking never was a normal thing but it seems ironically the Cards are still a first place team with a 51-28 record as of Saturday with a six game lead over Pittsburgh with the best record in baseball.

The Houston Astros have a decent record themselves leading the American League West with a 48-34 first place record and five game lead and the alleged scouting records of Houston Astros General Manager Jeff Luhnow and other possible other team scouts who might have been hacked. Luhnow says that he had changed his passwords before leaving the Cardinals to come to the Astros and had the good high tech etiquette to make the change, “I absolutely know about password hygiene and best practices. I’m certainly aware how important passwords are, as well as the importance of keeping them updated. A lot of my job in baseball, as it was in high tech, is to make sure intellectual property is protected. I take that seriously and hold myself and those who work for me to a very high standard.” said Luhnow.

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

San Jose Sharks podcast with Joe Lami: Recent signings and new assistant coaches join the Sharks

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by Joe Lami

SAN JOSE–Talking about the San Jose Sharks recent signings first 25 year old defenseman Mark Cundari who played with Calgary’s AHL minor league affiliate Adirondack the Sharks not expecting a lot from him because he’s an AHL type of guy. Doesn’t look like he’s going to be a NHL type of player but defense is what the Sharks went out and got and that’s what they need. Cundari had 29 points, seven goals, 22 assists last season in Adirondack.

29 year old Michael Healy was signed to a one year deal he scored 31 points with 18 assists and 13 goals last season, Healy has 56 career games in the NHL he played for San Jose a little bit, he’s a bigger guy definitely a grittier player. Healy is getting older he’s going to be 30 within this next contract for the one year deal. It’s looking like he’s not going to make the NHL and not be a true NHLer.

The Sharks signed 23 year old Patrick McNally to a two year deal 21 points with six goals with 15 assists. McNally is a player that the Sharks are expecting a lot from down the road definitely when you look at the ECAC that collegiate conference is absolutely outstanding when you got a guy who played defense for Harvard.

The Sharks acquired McNally in a trade in the draft for a seventh round pick the fact is they looked at McNally and clearly Sharks general manager Doug Wilson wants to do something with him. Now that he’s out of Harvard McNally will come into camp and probably not make the big club and go to the Sharks AHL affiliate Barracuda and eventually McNally could be a very good defenseman for the Sharks.

With San Jose assistant coach Wayne Thomas retiring the Sharks have hired Bob Boughner and Johan Hedberg. I’m really kind of sad to see Thomas go I had a personal working relationship working directly with him at the San Francisco Bulls. He was great to have around, a hilarious guy whose going to be missed in the organization.

Thomas was helping goaltenders and helping young guys out. He was viewed as being a goalie coach without being the goalie coach or as an assistant GM. It’s going to be sad to see Thomas go but he now gets time to spend with his family and with the assistant coaches head coach Peter Deboer is trying to make his moves and fill out his assistant coaching roles.

Joe Lami does NHL commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to his podcast below

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: Angels GM Jerry DiPoto resigns amongst internal friction with Scioscia , coaches and players

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

ANAHEIM–Yesterday as I attended the regular “press Q & A” with Angels manager Mike Scioscia most of the questions were about the rift between him, his coaches and the team’s General Manager Jerry DiPoto. Scioscia wanted to talk baseball and he was awaiting to answer baseball questions, about pitching, hitting, guys on the disabled list, the regular mundane stuff managers talk from day to day during the long 162 game grind of the regular season, but Mike Scioscia got few of those questions, and many about the soap opera here that has been going on for a few years now.

Granted the Angels won more games than anybody else last season, 98, but that doesn’t mean anything if you do not win it all, and this owner Arturo Moreno, has spent the big bucks to make this happen, but it hasn’t.

During the off season the team picked up the option for one more year for Jerry DiPoto. This morning DiPoto resigned.

How did this happened? Things have gotten much more tense since DiPoto fired batting coach (and good friend of Mike Scioscia) Mickey Hatcher a couple of seasons ago, and hired Don Baylor.

This time the problem was scouting reports, DiPoto wanted them read to the players, Manager Scioscia and his coaches, for the most part have their own system approaching games.

The team veteran and super star Albert Pujols spoke and said that “the manager and coaches do a good work with us here, and they work very hard with us”. After Pujols spoke, and it was an endorsement of his manager and coaches. After that happened Jerry DiPoto had the choice of resigning, or probably getting fired by the owner.

Today we have a 4:05 game against the New York Yankees, the last of this three game series, and the Angels are going for the three game sweep, the Angels are holding second place 4 games out of the Houston Astros, who definitely are proving everybody wrong and look like they are not going to melt away. Weird, that usually with the NY Yankees in town with A-Rod and the whole circus atmosphere they bring, it seems to be some sense of harmony for a Yankee team that under manager Joe Girardi (his eighth season at the helm of the Bombers)the news and controversy was coming from the other side of the field.

Usually soap operas here in the LA area are produced about 35 miles north closer to Dodger Stadium, in the Hollywood and Burbank studios, but the Scioscia vs DiPoto soap came to its conclusion officially today. The Angels,(except from Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Kole Calhoun)have not been hitting as well as last year, yet they are in the run. After today’s game they go on a road-trip to Texas, Colorado and Seattle to conclude the first half of the season, and then the All Star break. The Angels will probably be buyers before the July 31st deadline as it looks today, together with the Texas Rangers, with probably Oakland selling. I do not know what can Seattle do, they loaded and re-loaded during the last few months and they still not playing .500 ball. Houston is the one team(among all in this western division)that really has the most young talent to trade, so do not be surprised if the Astros pick up another starter, to go along their #1Dallas Keuchel and #2 Collin McHugh, and if they do, they could even win this division. Yes.

What is next for the Los Angels Angels of Anaheim? Stay tune.

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

Oakland A’s podcast with Charlie O: Which A’s team is going to show up? Jekyll and Hyde club drop one after winning one

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by Charlie O Mallonee

OAKLAND–The A’s who crushed their guests the Colorado Rockies at the Oakland Coliseum on Monday night 7-1 got knicked and lost by a run 2-1 on Tuesday night. I said last week if the A’s could get one win in Texas maybe two wins at home against Kansas City things would be okay because they would be about .500 that was the thought during that three game stretch.

Never in my wildest imagination they’d go to Texas and the A’s would sweep them. Then I got optimistic I thought wow the A’s could take two out of three from Kansas City, whoops! that was a little optimistic. So the their .500 after that six game stretch, it’s just that they did the sweeping and then they got swept. It’s pretty much the pitching and no offense against Kansas City.

That’s pretty much what you get, right there, right now the Athletics are 35-45. Their still in fifth place ten games behind Houston but if they keep creeping up on Seattle the A’s are just a half game back of Seattle for fourth place and we talked about it before when they hit before that it’s really a tremendous physiological barrier.

If the A’s can just get out of the cellar and leapfrog over Seattle then they realistically can think about “lets get to .500” right now their nine games under .500 that’s not insurmountable if they get to .500 they then could start thinking about other things. Their 6-4 in their last ten games which a lot of teams would take 6-4 in their last ten. They’ve won one in a row starting on Monday night, the A’s have the third best record in the American League since May 23rd.

The A’s have been playing so much better over this stretch and they need to do something to get over the hump and getting out of last place is a big physiological jump that will lead them to better things. One thing they’ve got to be thinking positive about is playing interleague games right now their 4-1 in interleague play this season. They are second best in the majors with that record of course the A’s always as you know have done well in interleague play.

Charlie O does Oakland A’s commentary for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast below

San Francisco Giants podcast with Michael Duca: Duffy has all the stuff of an MVP or Rookie of the Year yet it’s still early to say that

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by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–The Giants (42-36) who are in Miami for this week’s three game series with the Marlins (32-46), theoretically Ginancarlo Stanton who is out on the disabled list the team’s home run hitter is out with injury and it gives the Giants have a slight advantage in the series. Almost since he Marlins inception the Giants have matched up well against the Marlins. The Giants took a loss in the first game of their series on Tuesday night 5-3.

Casey McGehee who was designated for assignment just before Tuesday night’s game got his stroke back after the first designated assignment back on May 24th. He came back and sat on the bench and lost his timing after sitting for two weeks. That’s a recipe for hitting disaster for McGehee.

If you were to take Giants third baseman Matt Duffy’s season statistical line and lay it out directly next to ex Giant third baseman Pablo Sandoval’s season statistical line including errors you would find that Duffy was equal or slightly better than Panda in every single category and he makes a dollar for every 33 that Pablo makes.

Duffy and catcher Buster Posey were the entire offense against the Colorado Rockies in the series at AT&T last weekend to win two out of three. Buster is finishing the best RBI month of his career and Duffy is too, although Duffy’s career is a little shorter. Duffy’s count success is 12-15 hitting .377, 7-13 with seven runs over the weekend against Colorado.

Also Duffy has gone.424 on first pitches,.553 on 0-1 counts, .462 on 1-0 counts. If I was pitching him I would spot Duffy with a 2-0 count and start pitching from there because I would have a fighting chance then. Buster the same and I get the feeling Buster has taken Duffy aside already a couple times this year particularly after he’s moved up to the three hole and he kept pressing a little bit in more than what he needed to do.

Michael Duca does Giants commentary each week on http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to his podcast below