2018 Houston Astros Season Thread

[Gut Wagon 8219]

Framtastic

[huge 3831]

First game he was effectively wild. Today he was just effective?

[Gut Wagon 8219]

9 minutes ago, huge said:

First game he was effectively wild. Today he was just effective?

I remember thinking, around the fourth inning, how remarkable it was that he was getting away with throwing about 50/50 balls/strikes. He’ll presumably need to improve a lot in that area. 

[henrygandorf 29229]

2 hours ago, Mo Horn said:

I like the Rondon, Osuna combination at the end of the game. 

yep.

and pressly is a solid option for the 7th.  so is mchugh.  smith has been good too.  sipp when you're facing a lefty.  peacock if it's before the 7th.

haven't even mentioned harris or devo.

is our bullpen a strength now?

[UTexasFight 9819]

This is a week old but thought I’d post with the boys coming back home.

tl;dr: no one can figure out why we suck at home...other than curse of Tal’s Hill

 

The Astros have scored 66 more runs on the road than they have at home this year. Only two teams have a bigger disparity in that direction, and it’s weird because the Astros are supposed to have a hitter-friendly home park.

Supposed to, at least. Minute Maid hasn’t played that way in a few years. In fact, ever since the team removed Tal’s Hill in center field and brought the league’s deepest center field wall in by more than 20 feet — things you’d expect to help stimulate offense — there’s been a dramatic downturn in run scoring in Minute Maid Park.

Why? That’s complicated, but it looks like it’s part luck, part geometry, part defense and part … eyesight?

“Please tell me about it,” said designated hitter Evan Gattis. “It does feel harder to hit there right now, just being flat-out fucking honest.”

For the two-year stretch since they took down the hill, Minute Maid has played more pitching-friendly than it has in the past 15 years.

Already you see that the gap is closing, though, and that these sorts of things have a decent amount of year-to-year noise in them. We have to consider the fact that this could be a coincidence. Since bringing down the hill also meant bringing in the wall, it’s weird that the last three-year stretch has coincided with a downturn in offense.

On a granular level, there are some weird things going on. Thanks to Andrew Perpetua, we can look at the likelihood of a hit before and after Tal’s Hill came down and look for specific places where balls in play were the most affected. We limited this chart to balls hit over 95 mph, and then took a look at the likelihood of a double, depending on which direction the ball was hit. Generally, the blue line (with Tal’s Hill, in 2015 and 2016) is above the orange line (after Tal’s Hill, 2017 and 2018).

Look at those lost doubles in left field. Why would moving the wall in center — in a domed stadium, no less — change the number of doubles in left field?

Here’s why: it didn’t. Instead, perhaps because of more advanced analytics, the way teams played left field in Houston changed over time. It has more to do with the short porch in left, called the Crawford Boxes, than anything in center field.

“The Crawford boxes create an extra defender,” says Astros center fielder George Springer.

“They can shade the left fielder up in the gap, and shade everyone over because if someone hits the ball in the air to left, it’s a homer or a rocket off the wall,” explains Gattis.

Home runs in Minute Maid — before and after the Hill — peak in those boxes. And so, because it’s so short to left field, there’s no reason to put an outfielder anywhere close to the line. It’s either a single off the wall, a double into the corner, or a can of corn a defender can still cover even if he’s shading up to center field. There’s little to be gained by playing close to a line that short.

The Astros have learned this lesson over time. In 2016 in Houston (left), the Astros played their left fielders more like they did on the road (middle). Now (right), the Astros play their left fielder more up the middle, more in the gap, more in those -10 to – 20-degree angles that have seen a drop in doubles.

When Mike Petriello looked into this, he found that Astros left fielders play closer to the center fielder than most left fielders:

That much is true; the average Houston left fielder is only 131 feet from the center fielder, well below the average of 143 feet and far below the Major League-high of 154 feet at Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium.

So some of the drop-off in doubles can be attributed to new defensive philosophies, but what about the missing home runs?

Look at the lost home runs to the right and left of center field, right where the changes to the wall have been made. Why would moving the walls inwardsuppress home runs right there?

It may have something to do with sample size. Yes, there are two years on both sides of the sample above, but 2015 included a second half where the ball flew better than in the previous half, and that there’s evidence that this year’s ball is not flying as well as the ball did in 2015.

One clue to this is that nobody’s really hitting the ball out where the wall was actually changed (-5 to 8 on the graph above). It’s still pretty far out there, and now that it’s not 430+ with a hill, there have been a couple homers there.

“Nobody hits it out there anyway,” laughed Gattis about center field.

“Most hitters hit up the middle, gap-to-gap, and when you’re 404 by the bullpens and 409 to the other side, there’s a lot of outfield for your ball to die in,” Springer said, before adding: “The ball doesn’t seem to carry to center as well now.”

Wind is a terrible thing to try and model, and though you’d think it wouldn’t be a big deal in a domed stadium, that sentiment was echoed by another veteran Astros hitter.

“Center field plays more like 415 or 420 instead of 409,” Marwin González said during batting practice.

The only parks with fewer home runs to center field during this sample are Miami and Detroit, which includes a year when Miami was 418 to center field. Detroit is 422 to center field. Fenway is deeper to center but gives up more home runs to that part of the park than the other comparable three. There’s some evidence that Minute Maid’s center field plays deeper than it is.

But there’s one last change that might work to suppress home runs and offense across the board. When Tal’s Hill was in center, there was a green gap of wall next to the grass in center field that made up the ‘batter’s eye’ or the background for pitchers’ release points.

Now, it’s less uniform in the center-field section that makes up the batter’s eye. As the camera pans past center on this George Springer home run to right field, you’ll see some new seats that were built when they took down Tal’s Hill. That Budweiser-branded section of people in multi-colored shirts is both brighter than what came before, and also goes all the way to the center-field grass and occupies a place that used to just be a dark green wall before.

“There’s shit going on in center field, I don’t know if that’s it, or what, and I try my best to put it out of my mind and not think about it,” Gattis said, “but it’s hard to hit here, especially right-handed hitters.”

So you can step into the box virtually: here’s right-hander Charlie Morton from behind the plate. You could see how those stands would especially come into play against a left-hander — and in possibly related news, Dallas Keuchel has a 3.09 ERA at home and a 3.42 ERA on the road since 2017 began.

Batter’s eye issues due to unpainted metal center-field bleacher seats in San Francisco have led to a dramatic decrease in first-inning runs in that park, so we can deduce the background for the pitcher’s release point is an important thing when it comes to hitting. Seeing well is the first part of hitting.

Trying to nail down the effect a park has on the run-scoring within is one of the most difficult tasks in baseball. If you use actual results in a single year, you’re subject to the whims of those particular players and the shape of their production that year: maybe a few players just hit better on the road randomly in 2016, maybe Tal’s Hill had nothing to do with it. Even if you try to use larger samples or delve into the specifics of each batted ball, each ball in play is affected by so many factors before it lands.

“I can’t explain it and I want someone to figure it out,” Gattis said.

Sadly for Gattis, we don’t have a smoking gun, but we do have a few reasons that offense might be down since the Astros took down Tai’s Hill before the 2017 season. Defenders have started playing the outfield differently since then, for one. Any change in the walls will change the aerodynamics of the outfield, too.

But maybe the biggest reason for change is that new section of cheering fans out there where the hill used to be — it’s great they are there, but maybe for their team’s sake, they could all hold up black squares to create a better background and help their guys pick up the pitch earlier when they’re at the plate?

[Tommy Nobis 905]

We need a sports psychologist to teach the team every game at MMP is a road game.

 

[Guadaloopy 11139]

17 minutes ago, Tommy Nobis said:

We need a sports psychologist to teach the team every game at MMP is a road game.

 

“Losing is a disease...
...as contagious as bubonic plague...
... attacking one... 
... but infecting all. 
Ah, but curable.”

[Telegraph_it 3379]

I think it’s the A/C. Keep the roof open and the runs will come back. 

[Gut Wagon 8219]

Why are our hitters seemingly more affected by the MMP changes than visiting hitters are? Our road record continues to show we’re a solid all-around club, so I don’t see why we’d have more trouble at our park than elsewhere. Relative to the combined opposition, anyway. 

Edited August 27, 2018 by Gut Wagon

[TexArcher 39076]

Winning streaks are fun.  I like winning streaks.

[WBT 20997]

10 hours ago, UTexasFight said:

In fact, ever since the team removed Tal’s Hill in center field and brought the league’s deepest center field wall in by more than 20 feet — things you’d expect to help stimulate offense — there’s been a dramatic downturn in run scoring in Minute Maid Park.

 

Looks to me like taking out the hill reversed a three year trend of declining offense at Minute Maid.  Doesn't fit the narrative though I guess.

[Scraps 13811]

I want to say that I love not having to worry about Ken Giles coming into the game at any point.  It is very refreshing.  

Edited August 27, 2018 by Scraps

[FondrenRoad 4378]

10 hours ago, Gut Wagon said:

Why are our hitters seemingly more affected by the MMP changes than visiting hitters are? Our road record continues to show we’re a solid all-around club, so I don’t see why we’d have more trouble at our park than elsewhere. Relative to the combined opposition, anyway. 

That was my thought. If our park is bad for hitters, at the very least our hitters should be more accustomed to it than our opponents. 

I think some of it has to do with our guys getting anxious about it since they play half their games in mmp while opposing batters dont really have anything to lose.  I also think there is some anxiety about living up to last year when playing in front of Houston fans. 

[Gut Wagon 8219]

1 hour ago, WBT said:

Looks to me like taking out the hill reversed a three year trend of declining offense at Minute Maid.  Doesn't fit the narrative though I guess.

Hard to say. Yuli, Bregman and other solid hitters also started coming along around that time. Probably doesn't explain everything, but talent might well be part of it.

[Smax 3800]

https://www.mlb.com/astros/tickets/specials/ballpark-pass

[henrygandorf 29229]

12 hours ago, Guadaloopy said:

“Losing is a disease...
...as contagious as bubonic plague...
... attacking one... 
... but infecting all. 
Ah, but curable.”

yeah, i remember signing a contract, to play ball.  not to be put to sleep by some two-bit carney hypnotist.  i won't do that, pop.  i can't.

maybe we need a hypnotist to convince us we're on the road.  also, fun fact, that's when i learned the word "carney".

[UTexasFight 9819]

I want to say that I love not having to worry about Ken Giles coming into the game at any point.  It is very refreshing.  

Sept 24-26 in Toronto could be fun.

[runthebone 8380]

3 hours ago, Scraps said:

I want to say that I love not having to worry about Ken Giles coming into the game at any point.  It is very refreshing.  

He went 12 for 12 in save opportunities!!!!   FIP!!

 

Seriously, though, his Toronto ERA is down to 7.45, so that's a step in the right direction.

[henrygandorf 29229]

i saw he got a save the other day.  allowed one hit and one walk.  you do you, ken.

[Scraps 13811]

Springer, Correa, Tuve all gonna be in lineup tonight

Oakland prepare your anus

[Mez2 4048]

His team lost its 65-day hold on first place roughly 19 hours earlier, and now Alex Bregman is being asked questions he's not really hearing and definitely isn't interested in answering. His level of disengagement is understandable, and kind of funny. It's ballplayer-early in the morning, and his unfocused eyes are aimed somewhere in the middle distance. His politeness is in a pitched battle with his fierce desire to be doing almost anything else. We really should pick this up another time.

The setting doesn't help: the visitors clubhouse in Oakland, a low-ceilinged, low-tech, low-occupancy concrete fissure best known for its unreliable plumbing. There is Little League on the televisions that hang from the ceiling. Someone associated with the Houston Astros has decided that country singer Jamey Johnson -- his voice an intravenous sedative, his lyrics an ongoing reminder of every tragic event in human history -- is just the thing for a struggling team on a bleary Sunday morning. The once-unthinkable idea of a do-or-die wild-card game now looms. The apocalypse feels near.

Mid-answer, Bregman's connections snap. He stops, apologizes and asks me what he was talking about. It honestly doesn't even matter. Everything is grim.

Meanwhile, a low-level commotion rises from across the room. Outfielder Jake Marisnick beckons loudly. "Bregs! Bregs! Get over here!"

Suddenly, Bregman is back, engaged, blinking into the sunlight. He grabs a $100 bill out of his locker and politely excuses himself to join his teammates around a high-top table in the center of the clubhouse. Everyone is moving toward the center of the cramped room, sliding past chairs, juking their way around tables, drunk-driving their bodies in a centripetal rush toward money. Someone has a deck of cards, and it's time for a little team building -- $100 apiece, high card wins the pot.

It's loud in two languages. Jamey's sorrows are back to being his alone. First place seems inevitable again. The goal now becomes total participation. Justin Verlander presents an impediment to this goal. He is not a regular on the gambling circuit, for one, and for another, he will be the starting pitcher in a little more than two hours, a fact that -- in baseball's quirky ecosystem -- grants him total immunity from any form of pregame interaction. A bomb could be found ticking in the center of a clubhouse and guys would gather to discuss whether they should interrupt the starter's solitude to deliver the evacuation order. Verlander walks purposely to his locker, one side of his headphone perched above his ear, pretending not to hear any of it. But then he reaches into his locker and heads for the table as Marisnick yells, "JV's in! JV's in!" Half of them begin bouncing in place. JV being in is a big deal.

This unexpected development leaves one remaining holdout: Charlie Morton. He stands at his locker without changing expression. A chant begins: "Chuck! Chuck!" The script of this moment would list his character as Adult In The Room. Marisnick yells, "JV's in, Chuck. You've got to get in now."

In what can only be described as surrender -- "Just throw it in there and walk away," he says later -- Morton relents. The cards are handed out, the volume rising with each throw. Eventually, reliever Will Harris bounces out of the knot of humanity roughly $2,400 richer. Everyone yells. Everyone smiles. Bregman returns, his eyes clear and focused, and speaks confidently about the future. "We know how to handle this, and how to get better from it," he says of the team's recent struggles. "We need to look in the mirror and say, 'We're playing horribly, and the only reason we're in this position is because we're playing horribly.'"

The Astros take the field on this afternoon in Oakland and score nine runs to regain first place in the American League West. Bregman smashes a homer and has three hits. Verlander wins his 200th game. Afterward, Gerrit Cole gives a stirring speech recapping Verlander's career. Champagne is involved. Over the next week, they'll win six of seven and reclaim their AL West lead over the Athletics. Morton might be the only man in Houston unconvinced of the restorative power of a children's card game.

---

 

"People look at you differently" after a title, A.J. Hinch says. "The expectation level is really high." Troy Taormina/USA Today Sports

Astros manager A.J. Hinch has a uniquely defiant way of walking toward the postgame interview after losses. He moves with law-enforcement sureness, and you can imagine him backstage, taking a deep breath and loosening his shoulders -- like a surgeon steeling himself to talk to the family -- before heading into the room. His approach sends a message: We're fine. Everybody move along now.

There's a lot of moving and a lot of defiance in the 10 days I follow the Astros: nine games, seven losses, 4½ games lost to the Athletics in the AL West. Some of it is messy, especially the first night, when the first four Seattle Mariners hit for the cycle against Verlander and he gets thrown out of the game after two innings (and six runs) for arguing a balk call.

It feels as if something has been jarred loose. The Astros can't score. George Springer and Jose Altuve are on the disabled list, and Carlos Correa -- freshly off the DL -- is trying too hard and accomplishing too little. It's mid-August, and the A's are making an extended run while the Astros talk about The Grind like it's something standing in the room. The operative word is flat, because baseball teams that go bad all go bad the same way: quietly.

Hinch's message remains consistent: This is a glitch, a temporary setback, and not a trend. Every night, he storms into the interview room, stares out at the handful of reporters who aren't covering the Texans and repeats himself: Not a trend.

"My style is to be the calmest heartbeat in the room, the clearest thinker, the one who provides stability on a day-to-day basis in a marathon race that has peaks and valleys," Hinch says later. "How I handle things publicly and how I handle things privately is very important to me. You can't mistake calmness for a lack of fire, and you also can't confuse a public blowup as being authentic in every person."

Publicly, Hinch and the Astros spend a lot of time reminding themselves of what happened last year, when they won the franchise's first World Series. After losing to the Colorado Rockies for a fifth straight loss and ninth straight at home, Josh Reddick says, "It doesn't even feel like we've lost a lot of games. I don't think anybody is going to hit the panic button.

"But walking back to the clubhouse with your head down isn't really the best feeling, either."

"There's a little different feel this year," Hinch says. "More so because people look at you differently. The expectation level is really high. The reaction to wins is largely understated, and the reaction to losses is largely overstated. I don't know if I'm unique in this, but I don't see us 'defending' anything. I just see us trying to win the World Series."

But in a world where everyone seeks omens and turning points, it's tempting to conclude that the Astros' front-office decision on July 30 to trade for Roberto Osuna changed something. It's probably too grand to suggest it altered the Astros' entire identity, but the perception shifted from a soulful team with a 5-foot-5 MVP and young stars, a forward-thinking front office and an unconventional manager to a team that will do anything -- up to and including trading for a reliever coming off a 75-game suspension with a pending domestic violence case -- to win another title.

Besides, why mess with this? Why plant any seed of possible destruction? This isn't a team that hasn't won a World Series since 1908 (see: Chapman, Aroldis; 2016 Cubs). This is a team with statistically one of the top five bullpens in the game -- even with a perceived closer issue -- that won last year with the kind of modern-day bullpen inventiveness that made guys such as Lance McCullers Jr.and Morton into heroes and Hinch into a patron saint of analytics.

Hinch attempts to view it from an Olympian distance. He knows the focus on baseball can turn the accuser into an abstraction amid talk of bullpen options and late-inning matchups. He knows there are waters to calm. (When surveillance video of an Astros minor-leaguer punching his girlfriend in a stairwell was released last year, Verlander penned a tweet that included a middle-finger emoji and the words, "I hope the rest of your life without baseball is horrible. You deserve all that is coming your way!") It's not Hinch's job to make trades, but it's definitely his job to deal with the fallout.

"I think you have to compartmentalize," he says. "There's a baseball side, the competitive side, the team side, and there's obviously our own human side. Everyone's belief system is going to be different. It's impossible that all 25 players and 10 coaches are going to agree on everything, especially something as personal and volatile as domestic violence. ... To navigate that as a leader of men is something where I have to keep my balance personally and professionally. When I met with our team after the trade, I wanted our guys to know it's OK to have mixed emotions. Everyone was excited to add this quality of a pitcher, and everyone was curious about what it means and what's going to happen. The fact it is unresolved made it even more complicated."

And now, just like that, the Astros are part of any conversation concerning sports and its frequently tone-deaf attitude toward violence against women. Just one example: During this homestand, a national reporter for MLB.com, Alyson Footer, tweets out the phone number for a different women-related service -- a domestic violence hotline, a women's health clinic -- every time Osuna takes the mound.

During Hinch's post-trade meeting, he told Osuna he is lucky to join a clubhouse with high-character guys who can help him become a better person. Evidence -- their genuine response to Hurricane Harvey, for one -- suggests Hinch's claim has merit, but it might also be an unwanted burden. Over the course of nine days, the Astros didn't seem to go out of their way to engage Osuna. He mostly sat alone at his locker and stared at his phone.

In the ninth inning of the first home game since he was activated from the suspended list, Osuna jogged in from the Astros' bullpen. He warmed up by throwing the first seven pitches off the mound like he was playing catch three hours before the game. When the between-inning clock hit 0:30, he threw a final pitch at full speed. When his name was announced for the first time as an Astro at Minute Maid Park, there was almost no reaction whatsoever.

---

 

Roberto Osuna's first days with the team were spent mostly in solitude, and without any real reaction from the Minute Maid Park fans. Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports

The next afternoon, before the second game of the homestand, the Astros' clubhouse stays closed long after the time designated for media availability. As the wait stretches past 30 minutes, speculation begins among the Houston media. Did someone get sent down? Is it somehow Osuna-related? Does anyone know whether general manager Jeff Luhnow is in there?

When the doors finally open, a table in the center of the room is covered in white barrister wigs and black judge robes, with a couple of Ben Franklin reading glasses. Kangaroo Court, another baseball tradition intended solely to shatter the monotony, ran long. "Sorry to disappoint you," Hinch says. "No big news. Just bein' boys."

I walk into the tunnel that connects the clubhouse with the dugout and see Reddick, sitting in a padded cafeteria chair with his elbows on his knees, smoking a Marlboro and checking his phone. The next day, at about the same time in the same chair, Evan Gattis sat smoking a Marlboro and staring contemplatively at the wall across from him. The light from the field slivers up the tunnel at sharp angles. They're like Hopper paintings, accentuating man's loneliness and melancholy amid the gradual deterioration of a divisional lead.

---

 

"He carries this team in ways I don't think he realizes," teammate Josh Reddick says of Alex Bregman. Jason O. Watson/Getty Images

How much can one position player affect a baseball game? Bregman takes the field every game intent on figuring out an answer to that question. Hinch says Bregman "sweats confidence," and Reddick says, "Bregman oozes and bleeds confidence." It's probably best to leave those metaphors alone, except to say this: Baseball can be a suffocating game for a young, ultra-confident player who doesn't try to hide it.

"Not everyone can pull it off," Hinch says, "but he can."

Bregman played shortstop when Correa was out, and Bregman liked it so much he vowed to take all of his ground balls there in the offseason and next spring training. "It helps me get in a better rhythm," Bregman says. "Helps me play third the way I want to play third." He hits on the field every day, whether his team does or not, because "I like to see the ball fly." He's a 24-year-old kinetic force: An All-Star, a power hitter who doesn't strike out, owner of the best WAR (5.5) on a team that isn't hurting for stars.

"He carries this team in ways I don't think he realizes," Reddick says.

Bregman stands at the plate flicking the bat in his hands as if it's the handle of a hot skillet. He chokes up about 2 inches, and his swing is so short and quick it appears he's trying to punch someone with the barrel. Once he hits the ball -- and he's the rare player who walks more than he strikes out -- he runs with a wide base and his hands out to the side, like an enormous toddler with balance issues. His personality seems better suited to a sport that requires more constant movement.

When Bregman was 15 and in high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he made the commitment to become fluent in Spanish. He played for Team USA in a tournament in Mexico and wanted to be able to communicate with players from Team Mexico and Team Cuba.

"I like to talk to everybody," he says. "I was playing with and against guys who spoke Spanish, so why not be able to communicate?"

Spanish-speaking players make up roughly a third of the Astros' roster, and at one point or another, Bregman says he has been greeted by each one with the words, "Damn, you speak good Spanish." You can picture Bregman nodding -- Yes, yes I do.

"I want to be a leader," Bregman says. "In order to be a leader, you have to be able to communicate with everybody. That's why I did it."

He shrugs, pulls on his cap, grabs a bat from his locker and heads out to hit on the field. Amid the tragedies and comedies of a 162-game season, it helps to have a guy whose ambition is so pure, and so unshakable.

---

After Verlander's 200th win, which ended about two hours after Verlander had anything to do with it, the Astros run out of the dugout with a little more meaning. First place is theirs once again. Altuve is on his way to Triple-A to play a game or two before rejoining the team. A day that started with sad songs, lagging spirits and dwindling rations ends with unbridled joy and the hopes for a bright future.

But before the Astros head for the clubhouse, before Cole gives his speech and before Verlander stands up for the waning virtue of the win stat -- "When I first started, it was easier to get wins and harder to get strikeouts," he says, "and now it's harder to get wins and easier to get strikeouts" -- something odd takes place on the pitcher's mound: Gattis stands on it, looks in to an imaginary catcher and pretends to pitch.

For the most part, the Astros are a subdued and corporate group, free of the outward quirks endemic to people with vast amounts of time on their hands, so this development is unexpected and intriguing.

So I ask him. "This might sound strange," I begin. "But what are you doing out there on the mound?"

Gattis laughs a little and starts into the story. His father sent him a photograph during spring training: 5-year-old Evan, in his T-ball uniform, standing in the exact spot the pitching mound would be in the proposed stadium for the Texas Rangers in his hometown of Arlington, Texas. The stadium had been approved but construction hadn't started, and as a marketing move, the Rangers marked the spot where the mound would be. Presumably beardless, leg lifted in the crane position, facial expression suitably serious, there's Young Evan, eternally prepared to deliver the pitch of a lifetime.

And now here he is, 32 years old, 270 pounds, standing under a San Francisco Bay Area sky the color of skim milk, re-enacting the moment. He does it after every win. The windup, the leg kick, the pause; every time his team wins, he's 5 again. Sometimes, despite everything -- or maybe because of it -- you have to remind yourself you were once a little kid.

[Seasick Sailor 3747]

Top of the order finally looks as it should:

 

[Pablo 500]

damn good story, thanks for posting, Mez2.

I love me some A-Breg.

[TonyTexas 10785]

[henrygandorf 29229]

i feel like we travel with our own t-shirt guy.

[Player 4617]

Customer isn't able to make it to the game tonight. Who wants a couple of genuine imitation world series rings? Also come with a pair of free tickets in Sec. 131. 

[Smax 3800]

Baller ring night

[Gut Wagon 8219]

Top of the first worked ok for me. Now let’s truck these fools. 

[Tommy Nobis 905]

1 inning one DP. We gonna break that record tonight

[Tommy Nobis 905]

Nice meatball pitch. Can’t do that shit. A’s can hit.

[Seasick Sailor 3747]

Fucking shit. Cole is just serving it the fuck up tonight.

[David Dennison 19569]

Batting practice.

[perfectchaos007 6780]

Damn this Oakland club is hungry

[Gut Wagon 8219]

Seems clear the A’s don’t yet know about MMP’s bad batting eye. 

[Pablo 500]

AJ practicing his we’re not worried speech

[perfectchaos007 6780]

Welcome back Springer 

[thetruth 149]

On the board! 

[Dutchrudder 11247]

Enjoying the game from the company suite tonight!

[perfectchaos007 6780]

What’s the new hand gesture? Milking a cow?

[Seasick Sailor 3747]

Bregs!!!!!!!

[thetruth 149]

Bregman always delivers. 

[perfectchaos007 6780]

Back in this bitch 

[Anastasis 23717]

alright alright alright

[perfectchaos007 6780]

New ballgame!!

[Seasick Sailor 3747]

Fuck yeah!!!!!!!!! Back in this bitch!

[thetruth 149]

You hang 'em, we'll bang 'em. 

[TonyTexas 10785]

[Horny Bull 2766]

That was some throw from LF.

[Limp Brisket 549]

That’s what I’m talking about!

[Tommy Nobis 905]

Bob Melvin is a fucking pussy. Pulling your pitcher at the 50 pitch mark?!