Game #67: A's 9, Mariners 6

June 15, 2006 | A's vs. Seattle

First Place!
The new hotness: A's fever! If you are reading this blog I am pretty sure you had it anyway. Seven straight wins, sweep the Yankees, sweep the Mariners, bring on the Dodgers!

Today's game...
The Mexican Sammy Hagar started today and throwing out the errors threw a decent game: 6 IP, 91 pitches, 6 hits, 3 ER. I will take it. At the beginning of the year, I just wanted 200 IP of 4-4.5 ERA from Loaiza.

Dan Johnson is en fuego, 4 for 4, 4 RBIs. For the month of June he is hitting 484/528/1000 (BA/OBP/SLG) for an OPS of 1528. He has added 40 points to his batting average (he added 19 points just today) this month. This is great stuff.

Jay Payton getting three hits is a nice sign, Kielty homers and even Antonio Perez walked twice today.

The only downside I noticed in the box score: Crosby has already made 10 errors. That caught me off guard especially considering his limited play.

Quick thoughts on the Dodgers...
These guys are good. Although they have a similar record to the A's, the Dodgers actually are one of the most well-rounded team in baseball. They are 4th in the majors in runs scored and 8th best in runs allowed. The A's are twenty-fifth and fifth respectively. In June they are 6-7. The A's are 11-2.

I like the match-up tomorrow: Zito vs. Brett Tomko (consider him Jarrod Washburn South).

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind...
Tomorrow is my last day as substitute blogger. I have to admit I am a little bit nervous. The problem is this: every time I have written for this blog, the A's have won. This becomes a problem if the person you are filling in for is superstitious and would make you keep blogging through the rest of the streak. That won't happen to me, will it?

One for the boys...

Occasionally in the blog, you see some pink text and maybe a discussion of the aesthetic merits of Dan Haren, Richie Sexson or whomever has caught Wella's eye.

In the spirit of fair play, I wanted to post a few pics of some semi-baseball related hotties to balance the scales (on this blog only - I can do nothing about the rest of the universe).

The best I could do: Cat Osterman, gold medal winning pitcher for the USA women's softball team and Hazel Mae, Boston Red Sox post-game show hostess.

I will also add Kim Ng, assistant GM for the Los Angeles Dodgers, seen here with former A's front office star, Paul DePodesta. She is odds on favorite to be the first female GM in baseball. Her claim to fame is winning an arbitration case for the Yankees over Mariano Rivera.

(Game experience: Caught a snippet of the game on KOMO in Seattle and a peek at Gameday here and there)

A's record: 35-31 | streak: W-7