Game #38: A's 6, Yankees 1

May 14, 2006 | A's @ New York

SHOCK AND AWE

Shock:

• Antonio Perez is the designated hitter. He gets a hit. His batting average has now risen to .040.
• The A's steal three bases. What is the world coming to?
• Hooray for Jay Payton's home run. I didn't know this was his first for the season. Kotsay also had a home run and he got it using one of them pink bats to commerate Mother's Day.

Awe/Awww...:

• Danny Haren breaks the A's losing streak. Times like this I can't express how much I love this guy. Love isn't even the correct verb. I'm not sure what I feel towards him, but it's all good.
• Danny Haren goes deep into the game. This is his first complete game for 2006 and I'm sure he'll do more. He had three complete games last year. Today he threw exactly 100 pitches.
• Danny Haren rocks my world. He had eight ground balls and 13 fly balls. He also had six strikeouts. Unlike most fans, I'm not as into strikeouts. I know strikeouts are sexy, but I prefer the efficiency and economy of groundouts and flyouts. I dig the idea that you could throw a single pitch and get an out. Of course it helps that we've got good defense on the A's.
• And since it's Mother's Day I have to mention Mom. Her take on Dan Haren is that he's tuguin. I asked her what that meant. She said the word is not common to the various dialects in the Philippines; it's a word used only in the small town where she grew up in the island of Luzon. The word translates roughly to "sick chicken."

One more thing:

I have a healthy respect for the Big Unit. But he has a second bad outing in a row and the New York fans boo him?!

They're booing Randy Johnson, the guy who pitched the most recent perfect game in history. The Big Unit, who has killed a dove with a pitch. He has a two-foot-long hotdog sandwich named after him on the menu at Phoenix's Alice Cooper'stown restaurant. Seriously, Randy Johnson is a future Hall of Famer. He doesn't deserve to be booed by anyone, least of all the fans of the team he's on.

I know Yankees fans are harsh and they expect much from the players. But this level of "fandom" -- if you can call it that -- is twisted and misguided. It surprised me the first time I sat next to some Yankee fans at a game at the Coliseum in 2001 and they badmouthed their pitchers for losing to the A's. The practice continues to surprise me. I don't boo my A's, no matter how poorly they may play.

(Game experience: Heard the last inning called by Vince Cotroneo on the radio. That guy did such a bad job, methinks it's time to write him a letter with some constructive criticism. For the rest of the game, I read MLB News on my cell phone.)

A's record: 18-19 | streak: W-1 | well-A-meter: 3