The A’s neglected to make the playoffs this year. They just had to win the series this weekend with the Angels; they’ve already lost the first two games.
I never seriously expected this to happen, though admittedly the A’s haven’t been overwhelming this year. Their bullpen started the season badly (I always expect Billy Beane to steal cheap bullpen help, but he didn’t manage that this off-season), and while it stabilized, it never was dominant, and had some noticeably failures at the end of the season. (Today, for example.) The offense has gotten surprisingly decent contributions from many people; it wasn’t stellar, but it was at least respectable, which was better than I’d expected.
The starting pitching was the big surprise this year. At the beginning of the season, Zito was awful and Harden was bad, but actually I wasn’t too surprised to hear that, and Hudson and Mulder were excellent, Redman was decent. And Zito and Harden picked it up nicely towards the second half of the season, especially Harden.
But Hudson was somewhat off towards the end of the season, and Mulder was downright awful. The A’s don’t admit it, but I have to assume Mulder was hurt. With that, their starting pitching was mediocre, and they didn’t have any real strengths (except maybe their defense), and it’s hard to make the playoffs that way.
Wait till next year, I guess. Probably several hitters will regress; Crosby and Chavez could both easily get better, though, and Harden and (maybe) Blanton could contribute to the starting rotation. Right now I’m not too optimistic that the A’s will get much better next year, but I don’t see why they should be much worse. And maybe Billy Beane will do something clever this off-season.
Go Red Sox, I guess. And maybe the Giants will make the playoffs and I can root for them, too.
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The good news here is that I think Vladimir Guerrero probably won himself the MVP this week, elevating him above the undeserving Gary Sheffield and the equally deserving but maybe not in the running Manny Ramirez. This pleases me becasue I’m angry about the great Melvin Mora getting no consideration, and given that Mora won’t get it, I’m happy that another worthwhile candidate is emerging from the pack.
Go Giants, indeed, though there’d be a special pleasure in seeing Clemens and Pettitte shut down the Yankees in a Houston-New York WS.
10/3/2004 @ 11:54 am
I like Vlad, too.
And no Giants, either. I’m strangely attracted to the Astros among NL teams, if for no other reason than they looked like they were way out of it, stayed the course, and had it turn out well. I suppose I can find something to root for in any of the NL teams – the Dodgers GM came out of the A’s organization, the Cardinals just put together a really good team (and I have to feel sorry for Albert Pujols, who has had perhaps the best start to a career ever, only to be overshadowed by somebody who has had perhaps the best seasons ever), and the Braves, well, actually I don’t like the Braves, but they deserve more than one World Series out of their run of excellence, and their success the last two seasons when everybody gave them up for lost has been remarkable. (Getting a good season out of Jared Wright? The mind boggles.)
10/4/2004 @ 9:29 am