Tag: oakland a’s

The A’s had the Giants so confused when they ran off the field after the second out of an inning

Math is hard.

We’re still a few days away from Opening Day, so baseball teams aren’t all quite ready to play competitive games. Either that or the Oakland Athletics struggle with math.

A spring training game at RingCentral Coliseum between the A’s and Giants was briefly paused in the sixth inning because the A’s almost got away with ending a half inning on the second out.

The inning went like this: David Villar struck out for the first out. Joc Pederson walked. And then, Luis Matos grounded into a fielder’s choice. It should have been an inning-ending double play, but Tony Kemp caught the ball at second and jogged off the field as if the inning was over.

Initially, everyone seemed to buy Kemp’s confidence in forgetting the outs. The A’s ran off the field. The umpires were ready to turn the inning over. It wasn’t until Pederson and Gabe Kapler spoke up about that being the second out.

The umpires had a discussion and ultimately determined that, yes, the A’s still needed to get one more out.

Either this was an early sign of a long season to come for the A’s … or maybe we’re all ready for spring training to be over. If Kemp was ever going to forget the outs, at least it happened in an exhibition game.

No harm, just laughs.

Oakland A’s 2B Tony Kemp took flight to make one of the coolest catches of the MLB season

What a catch. And what a beautiful landing.

The Oakland A’s have a had long and lonely season this year and that season will shortly come to an end with a last place finish in the American League West.

Does that mean their players will taking it easy down this finally stretch? Absolutely not, if you saw what happened in their game against the Los Angeles Angels.

Second baseman Tony Kemp once again showed off his great glove in the field as he made a spectacular diving catch on a ball hit to short right. He seemed to take flight on this thing before nailing the landing:

At first I thought about whether he really needed to dive for that but the more I watched it the more I loved that he dove for that ball.

What a catch.

MLB fans loved it, too.

This unique view of Matt Olson’s sweet play at first base is so beautiful

What a cool view of a sweet play by Atlanta’s Matt Olson.

Sometimes it’s easy to watch a baseball game on TV and not fully appreciate a sweet play that’s made in the field. Blame it on camera angles that can make wild things look routine. It happens.

That’s what makes this view of the play Atlanta’s Matt Olson made in the eighth inning of Tuesday night’s game against the A’s look so darn beautiful. Olson fielded the ball behind the bag and had his back turned to the base after he scooped it up. He then calmly turned around and threw a strike to his pitcher, A.J. Minter, who caught it and beat Jonah Bride for the out.

Again, we see plays like this all the time but the camera angle on this one shows just how cool of a play this was:

I’ve watched that like 10 times and I’ll probably watch it some more this afternoon. Everything is perfect on that play, including the catcher backing it up and throwing a fist pump after the out was called.

Twitter loved it, too.

Aaron Judge smashed a monster 427-foot moonshot for an incredible home run No. 49

WOWOW Aaron Judge!

New York Yankees home-run hitting superstar Aaron Judge has been on fire for much of this MLB season. And despite a slump through August where he went had a streak of nine games without a dinger, he appears to have found his rhythm again.

Judge has now homered in three of the last four games, but we’re here to focus on the incredible 427-foot moonshot Friday night in the Yankees’ 3-2 win over the Oakland A’s.

A scoreless game in the top of the fifth, Judge got New York on the board first with his three-run homer off of A’s pitcher JP Sears, who, judging by his reaction, immediately knew that ball was long gone.

By far MLB’s home run leader this season, that was No. 49 to extend his lead over Phillies’ slugger Kyle Schwarber with 35 so far. More on Judge via MLB.com:

Judge’s 49 home runs are the second most by any AL/NL player prior to September dating back to the 2002 season. He trails only fellow Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton, who had 51 at the end of August 2017, when he was with the Marlins. He’s currently on pace to hit an AL record 63 homers this season.

Just an incredible home-run hitting season for the Yankees’ slugger, whose three-run dinger Friday against the A’s gave his team a 3-0 lead, and Oakland just couldn’t catch up in time.

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Stephen Curry proved he is not the next Michael Jordan while taking batting practice with the A’s

It’s safe to say Curry isn’t going to play minor league baseball.

Now that he has finally won an NBA Finals MVP, what else does Stephen Curry have left to accomplish?

After winning yet another NBA championship, the Warriors superstar has little else to prove on the basketball court. But he can still show the world that he isn’t too shabby at other sports, too.

Curry, also an avid golfer, tried his hand at baseball on Wednesday morning. He had the opportunity to take batting practice before the A’s played against the Astros at the RingCentral Coliseum in Oakland.

Watch him get some swings in while wearing a clean white A’s jersey:

A’s manager Mark Kotsay joked that Curry was “late” for batting practice, and so he won’t get any playing time against the Astros.

You can see another angle of the swings by clicking here. Upon further review, maybe Curry isn’t going to follow in the lineage of Michael Jordan and try to play baseball professionally any time soon.

But it looks like he enjoyed a nice conversation with Astros manager Dusty Baker, and the Houston players appeared excited to meet the NBA star.

This video did make me wonder how Curry’s teammate, Klay Thompson, would look at the batter’s box. Klay’s brother, Trayce Thompson, recently had a huge RBI for the Dodgers.

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The A’s ballboy made an awesome catch on a hard-hit foul ball and MLB fans loved it

This kid lived the ballboy dream!

One of the coolest jobs you can get as a kid has to be being a ballboy for a Major League Baseball team. You get to wear a uniform and watch the game from a pretty good seat on the field.

Oh, and you also get the chance to make some plays with your glove, which has to be a lot of fun.

Last night in Oakland one young fella lived the ballboy dream when he made a great catch on a hard-hit foul ball. He likely protected the Texas Rangers’ bullpen with his grab and he also had the crowd going nuts for him after he showed he had the ball in his glove.

This is great:

I love that he showed that he had the ball in his glove like the ump was going to see and call an out or something.

Twitter loved it, too:

An umpire ejected A’s manager Mark Kotsay so quickly and aggressively during a mound visit

This ump couldn’t wait to throw out Oakland’s manager.

Being an umpire isn’t an easy job, I get it. You’re going to get yelled at a lot and you’re really only going to get noticed when you do something wrong, which has been happening a lot this MLB season.

But still, some of these guys are being a little too sensitive this season. Like the guy who stared down Madison Bumgarner earlier this year. Or the fella who almost confronted a Diamondbacks pitcher earlier this week.

The latest example of this came yesterday in Oakland when home plate umpire Mike Muchlinski had enough with A’s manager Mark Kotsay and quickly tossed him during a mound visit.

This happened right before the ejection:

Then Kotsay went to the mound and seemed to wait for the ump to come out and then BOOM he got ejected in like a second.

Watch the very end of this video to see how quickly it happened. It’s pretty darn funny:

That ump’s aggressive ejection motion was so good. Dude tried to toss him into outer space!

Kotsay explained after that he was upset about one call that he thought should have been strike 3:

Twitter had reactions.

Things have gotten so bad at the A’s stadium that a possum has taken over the press box

Yikes!

It’s been a rough year in Oakland.

The A’s are an AL West-worst 15-23, the attendance at the Oakland Coliseum is dismal, and oh yeah, a possum is taking over in the area where announcers and reporters sit.

A couple of beat writers captured photos of the creature coming in through the ceiling, and on top of that, Minnesota Twins play-by-plan man Dick Bremer told the world that he had to leave the booth so that an exterminator could come in on Monday night. Yikes! Not good.

Here are some photos snapped, along with a video from Dallas Braden of the possum:

 

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Estas fotos nuevas y tristes de la poca asistencia en los juegos de los Oakland A’s deberían darle vergüenza a la MLB

Los Oakland A’s son una de las franquicias con más historia del beisbol, por eso, ver lo que le está pasando a sus fans esta temporada es aún más triste. Tal vez recuerden que hace algunas semanas hicimos una nota sobre la poca asistencia y sobre …

Los Oakland A’s son una de las franquicias con más historia del beisbol, por eso, ver lo que le está pasando a sus fans esta temporada es aún más triste.

Tal vez recuerden que hace algunas semanas hicimos una nota sobre la poca asistencia y sobre cómo el dueño del equipo es demasiado tacaño para alinear un buen equipo y cómo al beisbol probablemente no le importaría si la franquicia se muda a otra ciudad.

Bueno, pues desde entonces, las cosas han seguido avanzando por un camino muy triste para todos los fans, quienes merecen mucho más de lo que están recibiendo y es algo de lo que debería avergonzarse la MLB.

Veamos lo que ha pasado últimamente en Oakland:

La otra noche tuvieron menos de 2,500 fans en su partido, una cantidad ridícula.

Traducción: La menor asistencia para los A’s de la temporada. La séptima  de esta temporada por debajo de los 10,000, la cuarta por debajo de 5,000. Llevan once juegos como local.

 

Así es como se veía el estadio sin todos esos fans.

Oigan, esto es brutal:

(Foto tomada por Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

 

Había demasiados lugares muy buenos disponibles.

Estos dos fans tenían la sección completa para ellos solos.

Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports

 

Esta foto es de un niño con nadie a su alrededor es terrible, y es de hace algunas semanas.

¡Gran forma para que los fans más pequeños tengan recuerdos maravillosos!

Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

 

Esto ya está afectando a los jugadores, quienes también merecen algo mucho mejor. Qué pesado debe ser todo esto para ellos.

Traducción: “No importa cuántas personas estén en las gradas, simplemente queremos salir y ganar los partidos y tenemos que jugar mejor de lo que hemos jugado estos últimos cuatro partidos y seguiremos mejorando”.

 

Pero tristemente, los A’s no están solos en cuanto a baja asistencia, los dueños de los Pirates también apestan.

Traducción: En once partidos, los A’s tienen un promedio de solo 8,422 de asistencia pagada. El segundo lugar lo tienen los Pirates con 12,256 en doce partidos.
A diferencia de la narrativa que siguió a los Expos, el problema con los A’s no es el mercado, sino el terrible liderazgo de los dueños y de otros altos ejecutivos.

 

Y con todo derecho, los fans están molestos con la oficina principal.

Traducción: Es realmente extraño que ser tan tacaño como para seguir pagándole al mánager cuando al mismo tiempo y de forma muy transparente estar comprando terrenos en Las Vegas afecte la asistencia. Realmente me sorprende cómo se ha desarrollado todo esto.

 

Traducción: Los A’s necesitan dueños nuevos. Me da gusto que los fans no los estén apoyando.

 

Traducción: Esto tiene que acompañar cada historia sobre la asistencia de los @Athletics: esto es intencional. La empresa está afectando la asistencia. No creo que hayamos recibido una buena explicación (o pretexto) para el incremento en el precio de los boletos. Una asistencia intencionalmente deprimente.

 

Artículo traducido por Ana Lucía Toledo

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These new sad photos of small crowds at Oakland A’s games should embarrass MLB

There were only 2,488 fans at the A’s game on Monday. 2,488!

The Oakland A’s are one of the most storied franchises in all of baseball, which makes what’s happening this season to its fans even more sad to witness.

You might remember a few weeks ago when we did a post on the small crowds and how the team’s owner is too cheap to field a good team and how baseball likely wouldn’t mind if the franchise moved to a new city.

Well, things since then have continued on a sad path for a fanbase that deserves a whole lot better than it’s getting and MLB should be ashamed of itself.

Let’s take a look at what has been going on recently in Oakland.