A comedy of errors. First inning Alex Rios drops an easy fly to right in the first. In his defense, there was a little strip of sunlight that he moved into just as he got to the ball, could have made the ball hard to see, but really he should have had it. That cost us 2 runs. In the 4th, my hero Kevin Millar made a brutal error on an easy ground ball, slow moving grounder and he boots it. That is two of those in the last two games. That cost us another run. John McDonald booted an easy grounder in the 6th at short. It didn't cost us any runs, it was just ugly. Jose Bautista also made a bad throw on a ground ball that he did a great job to catch, he could have been helped out if Millar had tried to tag the runner instead of trying to get back to the bag. Bautista's play, for some reason, wasn't called an error.
Scott Richmond didn't look good in his first start since coming off the DL, he gave up 7 hits in 3 plus innings, 6 runs, 4 earned, walked 3 and struck out 2. Against basically a Triple-A team. Boy the A's have a lousy batter order. Brian Tallet gave up 2 runs, 1 earned in his 3 innings of relief. Jesse Carlson pitched a good inning and Shawn Camp got through a scoreless 8th after starting the inning giving up a single and a walk.
Offensively the top of our order did all the work for us. Marco Scutaro was 3 for 3 before leaving the game, maybe with a sore leg or likely to give him a rest in a blow out. Aaron Hill was 2 for 4 with 2 RBI and Adam Lind was 3 for 5 with a homer and 3 RBI. The rest of the line up was awful going 2 for 24.
Man it is well past time to release Millar, though he had a hit. He is just a terrible baseball player. Speaking of terrible Vernon Wells, Rios, Bautista and McDonald were all 0 for 4. I think Wells hit one ball hard that was run down by the CFer, beyond that they were terrible. I think we might as well release McDonald too, we aren't resigning him next year, he doesn't hit, hasn't walked yet this season and his fielding isn't what it once was.
Anyway no Jays of the Day today, though Scoot, Hill and Lind deserve honorable mention, but we were down by 7 when they tried to get us back in the game so they don't have the WPA numbers for JoD. Suckage Jays Richmond (-.302) and Rios and Millar for their errors and lack of hits when we could have used them.
A couple of Twitters from Bob Elliot about the pitchers we got from the Reds:
1st Reds scout "Wish we hadn't given up Roenicke he has closer's stuff and the makeup for it but he got in the doghouse with us."
2nd Reds scout: "Wish we hadn't given up Stewart, the kid can pitch, he'll be in the big leagues a long, long time."
Sounds good. Hope they are right.
Tomorrow night Brett Cecil (3-1, 4.27) goes against Trevor Cahill (6-9, 4.77) for the A's. I hope our defense plays better for Cecil.
I am away on holidays for a week with no internet. Likely a good thing, gotta cut back on this addiction some how. So treat Hugo nice.