We A’s fans just can’t ever get to enjoy anything, can we? The A’s take two in the Metrodome, but then find out that Mark Ellis has a broken index finger.

There’s a big defensive dropoff from having Bobby Crosby and Mark Ellis up the middle to having Marco Scutaro and D’Angelo Jimenez. Huge, huge bummer.

I was planning not to watch yesterday’s game at all, but as game time approached, a strange zen-like calm descended upon me. The nervousness I usually suffer during A’s playoff games left me, and I was able to watch the fabulous pitching duel between Johan Santana and Barry Zito with great pleasure. For about two hours, anyway.

The best thing about yesterday’s playoff games is that all the games were decided by great players making great plays: Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols, Cris Carpenter, Johan Santana, Frank Thomas, Barry Zito. Any sport is at its best when its best players rise to the occasion when it counts the most.

How much money do you think free-agent-to-be Barry Zito earned with yesterday’s performance? $10 million? He’s already the most durable pitcher in baseball (he’s never missed a start), with a Cy Young award under his belt. And now he can add “can outduel the best pitcher in baseball in a playoff game on the road” to his resume. Scott Boras went to bed last night a happy man.

This game was a great example of why Zito is a much better pitcher in 2006 than he was back in, say, 2003. Back then, he was strictly a three-pitch pitcher, and if one of his pitches was off, he had no way to adjust. Since then, Zito has added a slider and a cutter. When his command of a pitch is off, he has plenty of other options for attacking a batter. Yesterday, his fastball wasn’t particularly sharp, but he still got batters out, by throwing his fastball out of the zone, and mixing in some changeups, sliders and curveball with masterful effect.

Santana was similarly masterful. The dude is awesome. He will, however, give up the occasional long ball. Which leads us to Frank Thomas. What else can you say about Frank Thomas? He is THE MAN.

So it was a beautiful day for baseball, with one exception. Which was exactly the sort of thing I had feared about facing the Twins: that great baseball would be ruined by bad architecture. In the ninth inning, the Metrodome decided to insert itself into the proceedings and score a run for the Twins, as Milton Bradley lost a fly ball in the roof.

I flipped out. I ranted. I shouted. I screamed in horror. I think I punched a wall for good measure. Thankfully, my wife stepped in and restored calm in the Arneson household, by ejecting me from the ballgame. I spent the rest of the game exiled in the kitchen.

Huston Street closed out the victory without me, and the A’s have a 1-0 lead in the series. We A’s fans know not to get too excited about that, though.

So here comes Game 2: Esteban Loaiza vs. Boof Bonser. Do I dare test the Metrodome fates, and watch the game again?

Today’s Lineups:

Oakland Athletics
J. Kendall c
M. Kotsay cf
M. Bradley rf
F. Thomas dh
E. Chavez 3b
J. Payton lf
N. Swisher 1b
M. Scutaro ss
M. Ellis 2b

Minnesota Twins
L. Castillo 2b
N. Punto 3b
J. Mauer c
M. Cuddyer rf
J. Morneau 1b
T. Hunter cf
R. White lf
J. Tyner dh
J. Bartlett ss

Barry Zito has started a playoff blog over on MLBlogs. He’s not giving away any secrets, but the summary of his victory over the Twins in game 1 is a pretty entertaining read.

Check out all the division series previews over at Baseball Analysts. The last section is written by yours truly.

Then feel free to chat away, all you toast eaters.

Whether I’ll join you, I’m not sure. Will I have the courage to follow the action, or the discipline not to?

Lineups:

Oakland
J. Kendall c
M. Kotsay cf
M. Bradley rf
F. Thomas dh
E. Chavez 3b
J. Payton lf
N. Swisher 1b
M. Scutaro ss
M. Ellis 2b

Minnesota
L. Castillo 2b
N. Punto 3b
J. Mauer c
M. Cuddyer rf
J. Morneau 1b
T. Hunter cf
R. White lf
P. Nevin dh
J. Bartlett ss

Athletics-Twins

The key isn’t hitting by Mauer,
Or finding occasional power
By Justin Morneauing;
It’s Oakland not knowing
Santana’s next miles-per-hour.

Cardinals-Padres

With Woody, Wells, Young after Peavy
And a ‘pen that is very releavy,
The Padres are deep.
So maybe a sweep
Is something not too unbeleavy.

Tigers-Yankees

This will get ugly, I fear.
Detroit will get kicked in the rear
Unless somehow Zumaya
Is the bullpen Messiah
Instead of Rivera this year.

Dodgers-Mets

It’s painful for Penny to throw.
They’re trusting a rookie in Kuo.
With pitching so brittle
The Dodgers are little
But wagers on Maddux and Lowe.

The Scott Brosius weirdness continues…

Last year, I invented a formula for predicting the playoffs. The formula correctly picked the White Sox to win it all. Of course, since it worked so well, I decided to use the formula again in 2006.

My formula is based on one little-known fact: the team that committed fewer errors in the regular season wins the division series 2/3 of the time. I’ve looked at a whole bunch of stats, but I haven’t found another stat with a better success rates (fielding percentage comes closest).

This correlation only holds for the division series, not for the whole playoffs. So I set up my formula to work like this: in the Division and World Series, pick the team with the fewest errors. In the LCS, reverse the trend, and pick the team with the most errors.

Quite simple, eh? You’d think, but this year, the formula completely falls apart. Watch:

Division Series (fewest errors wins)
Mets (104 errors) over Dodgers (115).
Padres (92) over Cardinals (98).
Yankees (104) over Tigers (106).
Twins (84) and Athletics (84): it’s a tie!!!

Oh, no! We can’t predict who is going to win the A’s-Twins series!

No matter, we can continue anyway:

League Championship Series (most errors wins)
Mets (104) over Padres (92).
Yankees (104) over A’s/Twins (84).

Which leads us to this:

World Series (fewest errors wins)
Mets (104) and Yankees (104): it’s a tie again!!!

Yikes! We have no World Series winner, either! The formula fails!

Scott Brosius, what hast thou wrought?

The other day, Philip wrote, regarding the 2006 A’s, that “this has easily been, for me, the most maddening team to follow. Hardly are those words out than I find myself moving from lacking all conviction one minute to a quiet confidence the next, and then right back again.

My unstable emotional state is probably a sign that I don’t really understand this team very well. I cannot forecast to you the action of Oakland. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

I don’t mind having an unsolved mystery or two, like the tagline of this very blog, Stop Casting Porosity, lurking in my life. But when too many unsolved mysteries begin to accumulate, the riddles start turning and turning in my mind, as my mind tries to bind the disparate enigmas together into one impossible story, like a shape with lion body and the head of a man. I become vexed; there is too much data to control; the circles turn wider and wider; the center cannot hold. Questions become obsessions becomes paranoia. Anarchy is loosed upon my mind.

There’s something’s happening here. What is, ain’t exactly clear. You’ve got to be a very wary bear. Stop, listen, what’s that clown, everybody look what’s going down:

The Missing First Draft

I wrote this blog entry once before. But just before I was about to save it, my editing window vanished, and everything I had written disappeared. I gazed blankly at my screen. When something dies, you expect a shadow: some sign of the departed, desert birds circling indignantly for their meal. But nothing. No other computer problems; my other windows stayed intact. Just the one window with my first draft disappeared. How perfectly…inconvenient.

Was there something I wrote in my first draft that somebody didn’t want publicized?

The Racket

Let’s say there’s a product you think you’d like to buy. The product comes in a set. You might want the whole set, but more likely, you’d only want a few pieces of the set. A piece costs about $50-$200, depending on the quality of the individual piece. The set costs about $1,200. Here are the terms that the manufacturer offers you:

1. At invoice time, there is roughly a 50% chance that the manufacturer will deliver at least one part of the set, and a less than 10% chance that the manufacturer will deliver the entire set.
2. You must provide the manufacturer with a two-month, interest-free loan for the cost of the entire set, whether the manufacturer delivers the product or not.
3. You must pay the manufacturer a non-refundable $25 ordering fee, whether the manufacturer delivers the product or not.

Would you purchase the product, or try to renegotiate the terms?

I feel compelled to reject the deal, just on principle. However, it turns out the manufacturer can sell out the product anyway, despite the ridiculous terms.

There are two mysteries: 1. Why do so many people accept these terms? Do people lack all conviction? Are they so full of passionate intensity, they will pay anything, on any terms, to join the ceremony? 2. Given this troubling deal, is there any way to beat this racket?

I have no answer for either question.

The Convoy

For a whole week earlier this month, two or three times a day, a convoy of eight or so SUVs and minivans, all with Michigan license plates, kept driving past my office. About one or two minutes later, the entire convoy would turn around and drive away in the other direction.

Where were they going? There isn’t really much at the end of my road except a dumpster, a turnabout, a tennis court, and a boat dock. Why did they come all the way from Michigan to California? Why wasn’t one car enough? Why did all of these cars need to travel together? There wasn’t really enough time for them to load or unload much cargo and turn right around. What in the name of Bo Schembechler is going on here?

Dude, Who Stole My Car?

As darkness dropped on Wednesday evening, I lay in a stony sleep, nursing an injured neck, when my wife awakened me to a nightmare: some pitiless thief had just stolen my car from in front of my house.

This is the second time this car has been stolen. Were they looking for something in my car? Did the Michiganders have anything to do with it? Was Scott Brosius involved?

The Return of Scott Brosius

Some weeks earlier, I arrived home one night, went into my kitchen, and flipped on the light. Right in the middle of the floor, I found a 1997 Topps Scott Brosius baseball card.

I had never seen the card before. I asked my wife. She had never seen the card before, either.

Where did the card come from? Who put it there? Is it a warning? An omen?

Why a baseball card, and why Scott Brosius? What does Scott Brosius mean, anyway?

This image from the past troubles my sight. In my eyes, if Scott Brosius is a symbol for anything, it’s the lost sheep, the prodigal son. Brosius left the A’s after a miserable 1997 season, and went to the Yankees, where he became a postseason hero. In fact, Brosius’ departure began an incredible run where nearly every World Series featured someone who had done practically nothing in Oakland, but seeming out of nowhere became a postseason hero in their new homes:

1998-2001: Scott Brosius
2002: Scott Spiezio
2003: nobody, really, but Dontrelle Willis is a local kid who got away, so maybe he counts
2004: Mark Bellhorn (plus Johnny Damon and Keith Foulke, I suppose)
2005: Jermaine Dye

FWIW, here is a list of players who match the above criteria, who are eligible for the postseason:

Octavio Dotel, Cory Lidle, Sal Fasano, Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, Kenny Rogers, Jeremy Bonderman (minors), Andre Ethier (minors), Olmedo Saenz, Chad Bradford, Tyler Johnson (rule 5 sendback), and two former champions, Mark Bellhorn and Scott Spiezio.

Will it happen again? Is one of those players on this list the next ex-Athletic to earn postseason glory?

Or does the second coming of Scott Brosius mean something else? Is some new revelation is at hand? Is there some great Spirit of Baseball loosing a strange new tide upon the world? What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Oakland to be born?

And The Last Puzzle Piece…

There’s a v

How the heck do you get swept against the worst team in baseball when you need just one win to capture the division title? The Tigers should be automatically disqualified from the playoffs for that simple fact alone. Let the White Sox in the playoffs instead. At least they’d put up a fight. I wouldn’t usually root for the Yankees in any playoff series, but the pathetic display by the Tigers this weekend has disgusted me so much that I am now rooting for the Tigers to suffer the most humiliating, lopsided playoff defeat in major league history. If they’re gonna choke like that, why couldn’t they have saved their major choke job for one more day (i.e. in the playoffs against the A’s)? Argh.

I guess I spent whatever good karma I had on winning the division, because everything else in my life has pretty much sucked since then. The day after the A’s clinched the division, I injured my neck so badly that I could barely move, and every time I tried to do anything, I ended up with a pounding headache. And then, the same evening I hurt my neck, someone stole my car. And now, the coup de grâce, the stupid Tigers have gone ruined the whole playoffs for me by getting swept by the Royals, of all teams.

The playoffs are ruined because now the A’s have to face Johan Santana and the Twins. Facing Santana is the toughest possible playoff assignment, but that’s not what’s ruining the playoffs for me; I actually enjoy watching Santana pitch. Santana is probably the only Twins player I’ve ever liked outside of Kirby Puckett.

No the problem is simply that I hate the Twins. I really, really hate the Twins. And the Metrodome. I hate the Metrodome, and that stupid turf, and the way its ugly shade of green reminds you that you are playing on fake grass instead of beautiful green grass, and the way the game resembles pinball more than baseball because of that stupid turf, and that stupid roof, and the stupid way all the noise gets trapped in there like a greenhouse traps heat because of that stupid roof, and the way the ball is hard to see through that stupid roof when you play a day game, and the fact that playing a day game is completely wasted when you play it under a stupid roof instead of the open sky, and the way the stupid architecture makes you play an inferior sport with inferior rules and inferior tactics, and how you have to change your approach to take precautions not to lose a game because of a stupid fake grass bounce or a misjudged stupid white roof fly ball, and how you can lose a game that you normally wouldn’t lose under open sky and on real grass because the ball takes a stupid fake grass bounce or a fielder misjudges a stupid white roof fly ball, and the way I can list a whole bunch of stupid things I hate about the Metrodome without even mentioning how stupid I think that stupid plastic bag fence is, and that stupid plastic bag fence.

There’s no way I could possibly enjoy this playoff series now, even if the A’s swept all three games by 16-0 scores. I think that listening to Roseanne Barr sing the national anthem for three hours straight would be a more pleasing aesthetic experience than watch the A’s play the Twins in the Metrodome.

Well, good thing then that the first three games are weekday day games. I can’t watch, I have to work. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.

Over on Baseball Prospectus, Nate Silver runs a quick and dirty analysis of the playoff rotations, and concludes that the A’s rotation is the worst of all the AL playoff teams, with an expected ERA of about 4.23.

This is mostly because Barry Zito is scheduled to be the #1 starter, and Silver’s formula hates how many walks he gives up. The interesting thing is that if you reverse the A’s rotation, so that Barry Zito is #4, and Dan Haren is #1, then the A’s expected ERA drops to 3.99, second best only to the Twins.

And neither of those is the rotation that you’d really want if you ignored the numbers, and went by how each pitcher has looked lately: Rich Harden pitching in games 1 and 5.

But still, the rotations of the Yankees, Tigers, and A’s are all so close, it doesn’t really matter that much. Players don’t usually throw an average game in the playoffs: they’ll have a good day or a bad day, and the chips will fall where they fall. The only certainty out of any of those calculations is that you should try to avoid facing Johan Santana if at all possible.

* * *

A lot of the playoff analysis I’ve seen so far keeps saying that the A’s need to win with their pitching, because their offense is terrible. Well it was terrible, before the All-Star break. But since then, it’s been quite good, as a whole. And the most interesting thing about the A’s offense is that, while no one outside of Frank Thomas has any really impressive numbers, the lineup as a whole is extremely balanced.

I’m going to list (in OPS order) the AVG/OBP/SLG since the All-Star Break for the usual suspects in the A’s lineup. Can you tell which player is which?

1. .300/.396/.559
2. .294/.380/.480
3. .299/.385/.471
4. .250/.364/.470
5. .321/.379/.435
6. .275/.346/.451
7. .311/.348/.434
8. .329/.399/.375
9. .239/.348/.421

It’s not very easy to tell them apart, is it? You can probably pick out Thomas and Kendall from their SLGs, but otherwise, they all look an awful lot alike. The lowest OBP in that lineup is .346. The lineup doesn’t have a ton of power, but it doesn’t really have any OBP holes, either. That gives the lineup an interesting dynamic: a rally is almost as likely to burst forth at the bottom of the lineup as the top.

* * *

So I’m not actually all that worried about the offense in the playoffs. Unless they’re facing Santana, I think they’ll get their runs. I’m also not worried about the defense, and I’m not worried about middle relief.

I do worry about these three things: (1) the starting pitchers haven’t looked very good lately, (2) neither has Huston Street, (3) unlikely disasters. I think the first two are capable of correction. The third, I dunno.

Tonight, after resolving not to watch the A’s, I ended up watching a Nova documentary on supervolcanos instead.

And so it was…the Angels lost to Texas, and the A’s beat the Seattle Mariners, and clinched the AL West, avoiding the massive choke I feared.

Yippee!

The last time the A’s beat their jinxes and won the World Series, there was a massive earthquake in the Bay Area.

Obviously, then, there is a connection between natural disasters and jinxbusting.

So I guess I’ll need to make a list like this one of shows to watch during the playoffs.

Huston Street blows a three-run lead in the ninth. I can’t take it anymore. I’m fasting the rest of the regular season.

So I didn’t get to see the A’s clinch the division today. Shoulda figured. I’m a jinx when the A’s play the Angels. After the game, my wife asked me the last time I saw the A’s beat the Angels in person, and I failed to come up with an answer. As far as I know, I may have never seen the A’s beat the Angels in person. I know I’m at least 0-for-my-last-7 or so, including one game in Anaheim. My very first ballgame ever was an A’s-Angels game in 1974, and the Angels won that one too.

Today’s loss probably had more to do with John Lackey than me, however. (And now, we interrupt this blog entry to present this Johnny Carson routine:)

Lemme tell ya, John Lackey was really good today.

How good was he?

Continue…

Darin Erstad may not be able to provide much impact on a ballgame anymore, but he still seems to be able to provide some nice photos. Today’s example:

This play kept Milton Bradley on first base, and saved Orlando Cabrera from yet another error on his stat sheet.

We’re ahead! We’re tied! We’re behind! We’re tied! We’re ahead! We’re about to win! We’re tied! We’re about to lose! We’re still tied! We win!

My stomach is full of knots.

With their victory tonight, the A’s have clinched their second straight MLB Heavyweight of the Year crown. Texas can still catch up to the A’s in wins, but the A’s will have fewer losses, and would thereby win the fewest-losses tiebreaker.

Tomorrow, the A’s will try to clinch the AL West title as well. I’ll be there, camera in hand, hoping to witness an AL West clincher for the second straight year.

With the A’s victory over Cleveland this afternoon, every non-AL West team has been eliminated from any further MLB Heavyweight title bouts. (See Catfish Stew sidebar for details.)

The A’s and Angels have 10 possible title bouts remaining, while the Rangers and Mariners can have six each. Only the A’s and Rangers remain in the race for Heavyweight of the Year. The A’s have 27 victories, while the Rangers have 22. Because the A’s have fewer losses, just one more title bout win by the A’s, or one title bout loss by the Rangers, would clinch a second straight Heavyweight of the Year title for the A’s.

One piece of good news for the A’s: if the Rangers do come from behind and win the Heavyweight of the Year, it would mean that the A’s would get at least a tie in the real AL West standings, as three Rangers victories over the Angels would reduce the A’s magic number to win the AL West to 1. So A’s fans can calm their nerves with the assurance that they will likely win at least one title or the other, if not both.

One final note of interest: although the Heavyweight title stayed in the AL for most of the year, the New York Yankees did not have a single title bout.

With the A’s victory today versus Cleveland, the A’s hold a seven game lead over the Angels, with ten to play.

And yet, the Angels still control their own destiny. They don’t need any help from any other team to win the AL West. How weird is that?

If the Angels win their last ten games, they will finish no worse than a tie for first place.

* * *

Man, seeing Rich Harden back out there again was sweet. Seven strikeouts in three innings? Wow. When I watch batters swing through that 87mph changeup, I just get all giddy happy. Please, please, please stay healthy.

I had a nice long post three-fourths written earlier this morning, but my browser window just suddenly closed on me, and poof!–it was gone. I think there’s a conspiracy behind this mysterious disappearance. Somebody doesn’t want you to know what I know. I’d explain more, but then I’d have to write the darn thing over again, and there’s no time.

Instead, I’ll just present this little chart of some post-break numbers for the AL playoff contenders. I checked these numbers to see how good the A’s hitting has been since the All-Star Break, in comparison to their competitors. Answer: pretty good.

Interesting: the stat that separates the top three teams from the second three is mostly OBP. On the other hand, the stat that separates the top three teams from each other is mostly slugging percentage.

Maybe Billy Beane knew something when he predicted before last year’s playoffs that the winner would be the team that hit the most home runs.

Pow!

Three run homer.

And the crowd starts chanting “MVP! MVP!”…not because they think he will or should win the AL MVP, but because they like him, they really like him, and “MVP” is a lot easier to chant than “Comeback Player of the Year! Comeback Player of the Year!” which is what he really should win.

Three cheers for Frank Thomas!

And the AL West lead is up to seven, and the AL West magic number is seven, and there are seven games left against the Angels, and seven games left against Not-The-Angels.

Catfish Stew has been brought to you by the number 3, the number 7, and the letters M, V, and P. See you tomorrow!

When my kids heard that today’s giveaway, the A’s poker set, was for adults only, they got all huffy and refused to go to the game. Either that, or they just wanted to fast Joe Blanton.

In either case, I suddenly have two extra tickets for the game I need to give away. As I write this, I’m about to leave.

Update: You missed a good game. And a poker set. The poker set has two decks of cards (with Bobby Crosby and Huston Street on the backs), about fifty 100 chips, and five six dice. Dice in a poker set? Oh, if only you had known that they were giving away a combination poker and Yahtzee set, you would have been there when the gates opened! Cuz when the World Series of Yahtzee hits Las Vegas next year, with all the celebrities and ESPN and whatnot, you are so there.

Here we have Mystery Photo Number Twelve. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to help figure out the who/when/where of the photo.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Thanks to all who have sent in photos. I have enough to keep us going another few weeks. Nonetheless, please send in more. If you have any old (non-copyrighted) MLB photos that might suit this game, please email them to mystery At humbug .com.