Whats for dinner? Crow? Sounds great

OOF! Thats the sound I make when I realize I am wrong. Sometimes its a little heavier on the OOO, but I digress...

Yeah, so about that last post. Totally kidding. I probably should have waited for a few more stats to normalize before I started spouting off about my beloved A's. We now sit a full 8 games back and have 9 of our last 10. I don't think the bubble burst, I think I dropped the bottle of suds before I even had a chance to have fun. The rotation is in shambles, with Anderson out a minimum of 6 weeks, Braden done for the year, and McCarthy still on the DL. The (lack of) offense is tied with the non-mashers up in Seattle for the fewest runs scored in the AL, at 244. The best news lately that we've heard is that Anderson doesn't need TJS,and Bailey is back from the DL. Oh yeah, one more thing...

BEST MAN BOB IS GONE!!!

Yep, "Mr. I can't work a bullpen correctly to save my life" is finally gone! Now I don't want to celebrate the firing of a human being from the job, but when one shows utterly incredible failures in 3 straight seasons, loses the respect of a major bullpen arm and voice in Fuentes, and according to the papers, lost the Clubhouse as well, then it is certainly time to move on. He's been replaced on an interim basis by Bob Melvin.

Personally, I think managing a MLB baseball team is relatively easy. This is how I see the job description of my manager in no particular order:

-Navigate the media
-Communicate with your players
-Construct the ideal lineup, preferably with some solid reasoning behind it, or dare I say, even something like this:
-Set the rotation
-Juggle the starters and bench players to keep everyone sharp and fresh
-Manage the bullpen

Now I'm sure I'm missing some things here, but that has to cover at least 80% of the job. Call me a minimalist here, but come on, what else is there? Whatevs. I meant to post this like a week ago as soon as the news broke that we got Melvin. Whatevs.

*sigh*

Really, the only point of this post is to mock myself and my blind faith of my last post. Heres to the playoffs...next...decade?

Breaking news!! A's score 14 runs in one game!

Prior to this evening, my beloved Oakland A's have scored 146 runs. Tonight the bats exploded for 14 runs, or obviously just less than 10% of their entire run output to date. The 14-0 shellacking of the rival Angels singled handedly bumps the A's to 4th in Run Differential, +20, in the AL.

The Athletics, Rangers and Angels are now all in a 3 way tie for first in the West, with records of 22-20. Obviously this is a biased post, given my fanatic fandom, but the A's have to be the favorites going forward.

Now I realize that the Rangers have sputtered due to injuries to Cruz and most notably Hamilton. The Angels have felt the effects of Morales being out for the season, and the even worse effects of trading for Vernon Wells. The A's haven't been immune to injuries, as their Closer*, Andrew Bailey has yet to throw a single pitch. The worst news came today, when Dallas Braden will be out for the season after surgery.

*Closers are the single most over-rated position on a baseball team. I firmly believe any decent reliever will be a good closer. Is it harder to enter a clean inning with the bases empty, or be thrust mid inning with runner(s) on base? Actually, I shouldn't rip Closers. Bullpens in general are an issue to me, but thats another post entirely

After ruling out further unforeseen events, and assuming DL schedules are within +/- of 5 games, we can begin to compare the Rangers and the A's.

Rangers wOBA and wRC+: .338 and 111
A's wOBA and wRC+: .295 and 87

Oof. No sugar coating or spin control there. That is just ass-ugly for the A's. Fortunately, Baseball is more than hitting. Pitching will paint a different picture for us.

Rangers FIP, xFIP, tERA: 4.54, 4.16, 5.21
A's FIP, xFIP, tERA: 3.19, 3.49, 3.38

Yikes. That is just as glaring. Given that the A's have yet to showcase their best in baseball defense with a bevy of errors to start this year, and I can safely say that the Oakland staff will not significantly outperform their ERA/xFIP number, ie not like Cahill and last year year.

Based on these numbers and my blind faith, I feel safe saying that my A's will win the AL West.