Happy Thursday kids,
Apparently incapable of recovering from a game in just one day’s time, a battle-weary A’s squad took the field in the shadow of the great white obelisk on a beautiful DC summer evening against the Masters of Disaster, who apparently are neither A) from FEMA nor B) Disastrous in any sense of the word.
A small and mostly veteran squad manned the diamond last night, starting off in a rather dismal, if expected manner. Once again the home squad, we relinquished 13 runs in a mere 2 innings to the Masters; meanwhile, our only offensive production came from the bat of Alex “Ander the Great” Stamm who hit the first of his two quadruple-baggers of the day to drive in two runs in the first. In the third, wily veteran K-Dawg “My pitch is worse than my bite” Roth came on in relief of Mr. Prohibition, who continued his hitting streak from the day before to end his A’s career in style, and the defense gelled around its new pitcher. We allowed just 6 runs over the next four frames (including two scoreless), which perfectly positioned our offense to help navigate our way back into the game.
Unfortunately, the offense missed its cue, only generating one run on a sac fly by E-Dub Wertz, who despite going hitless on the day continued her power surge at the plate. But she was only one of the women who stood out on the day; Hil Dog broke out in her third start with two hits and two runs scored and K-Diz chipped in with two hits and a run scored of her own. By the time the sixth inning rolled around, we were in far too deep a hole to climb out of, but these A’s wanted to save some face and really started to put things together at the end of the game. The first three batters in the 6th all got singles and were driven in on our second grand salami of the year, the first of back-to-back homers by MVP Skip and cleanup man Stamm. We got two more runners on before faltering and leaving them stranded, but that put our lineup right back into the same position for the seventh. After another strong defensive performance to keep the score roughly the same, the Masters got two quick outs in the bottom of the final frame before Will Abbott and Hil Dog punched through singles to give us two baserunners. My second homer of the day brought in three more runs, but our flame of hope was extinguished shortly thereafter, and the A’s fell to the Masters of Disaster by a final tally of 21-11.
It’s hard to point to any one thing, or even combination of things, that have befuddled us so far this season, leading to our monumental struggles. It’s really just a combination of little things that add up over the course of a game that cause us to continue to stumble. So for the remaining 5 or so games of the season, I’d like us to focus on just playing sound baseball. Let’s keep our focus on defense, where we have played well overall but tend to get erratic like an overexcited puppy before making boneheaded miscues (I of all people am most to blame for those. Sorry.). Let’s work on becoming more consistent at the plate, being patient with pitches and hustling out every potential hit, because you never know when our opponent’s D will make a mistake. But most importantly, let’s continue to have the fun we’ve been having, because I don’t know of any other team with a record below .250 that’s been so damn enjoyable to play with.
We’ve got two games next week, which gives us the chance to salvage some bit of dignity from the season. On Tuesday we face off against the Oil Barons, and Thursday we take on Nicky’s Knockers; both games will commence at 6:30 on the mall. We’ll likely play on the Ellipse or right next to the monument; more details will follow. If you haven’t yet sponsored beer for the season, now would be an excellent time to do so since we’re really winding down.
That’s it for now A’s. Go rest up this weekend and get ready to kick some effing A next week.
Effing A, Skip
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