September 07, 2004
Trapped!
The A's got robbed in the bottom of the 8th, once by the umpire, once by the Red Sox defense. Kotsay led off the 8th with a line drive that faded away from Ramirez. Manny appeared to backhand the ball and the umpire call Kotsay out. The Athletics argued the call to no avail. The replays pretty clearly showed that Ramirez trapped the ball. Byrnes was up next, and hit a long fly ball to the wall in right center. Roberts and Kapler both jumped for it, and Kapler came down with the catch. If those two plays go a little differently, it's a tie game.
In the ninth, with the Red Sox having scored three more runs, Mientkiewicz hit a liner that faded away from Kotsay. Mark trapped it, but claimed to make the catch. The replays showed that Kotsay trapped the ball, but it was a lot closer than Manny's trap to a catch. Kotsay told the ump that he was robbed twice. I'm surprised Mark wasn't tossed at that point. The fans were upset as well, and littered left field with empty paper cups.
It was my impression that the A's hit the ball a lot harder than the Red Sox in this game, it's just that the Sox soft hits got them on base, while a lot of the hard hit balls against Arroyo were caught. The Red Sox keep pace with the Yankees, who won again behind Orlando Hernandez.
Posted by David Pinto at
01:27 AM
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Elephants In Oakland has an interesting breakdown of the A's vs. the AL East this year. They've been fine against Tampa, Baltimore, and Toronto, but have been manhandled by New York and Boston.
EIO lays out the hitting stats side by side, and the biggest difference between Boston and Oakland's offense has been the walks. Boston outwalked Oakland 33-9 over the first 6 games they played. Boston outwalked Oakland again last night (5-0..so that's 38-9 over the 7 games they've played.) That's over 4 baserunners a game difference.
SteveF,
Elephants is just a great blog with supurb writing. I still think fear gets you more walks than trying to get walks gets you.
This Yanks Boston thing is getting interesting; Boston has had the Angels, Blue Jays, and A's and gained a game on the Yanks who have had Cleveland, Baltimore, and Tampa. Next up the Yanks have Baltimore, who is still actually trying to win games, while Boston gets the Mariners for four, who have given up on it totally except for Ichiro making history.
