Wednesday, July 17, 2013

MLB Power Rankings

Baseball comes back from the All-Star Break tomorrow.  Here are the top 10 teams in MLB, according to CBS Sports.  Another big week for Eric:

1.  Oakland Athletics:  56-39
2.  Boston Red Sox:  58-39
3.  St. Louis Cardinals:  57-36
4.  Tampa Bay Devil Rays:  55-41
5.  Pittsburgh Pirates:  56-37
6.  Atlanta Braves:  54-41
7.  Baltimore Orioles:  53-43
8.  Detroit Tigers:  52-42
9.  Texas Rangers:  54-41
10.  Cincinnati Reds:  53-42

Natstown continues to poke around in 16th.  The CBS Sports guy has finally accepted that the Nats aren't going to win the pennant.  He now has the Reds meeting the Tigers for the title.  Personally, I'm still hoping for the A's and the Cards.

68 comments:

  1. #GREENCOLLAR! A's open at the Angels tomorrow night. The shirt is washed and ready to go, baby!

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  2. Oakland came back from the All-Star break to lose 4-1 at Los Angeles last night. Coco Crisp flied out with a man on second for the last out in the top of the ninth, but I failed to put on the shirt after getting home from dinner at Coronado Springs. It's tough to get back to work after vacation.

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  3. #GREENCOLLAR! A's--trailing 3-0 at Houston after three innings--get a run each in the sixth and seventh and two in the eighth to come from behind to beat the Astros, 4-3. Oakland, which broke its two-game post-ASG swoon with a complete-game victory from Bartolo Colon against Los Angeles on Sunday, remains three games ahead of Texas in the American League West.

    The Rangers earlier tonight beat the Yankees (Texas has hung 20 straight scoreless innings against New York), as Joe Nathan recorded his Major League-record 434,016th save. (Joe Nathan has allowed six runs this season, and no two of them have come in the same game.) Earlier in the afternoon, the Rangers traded a bunch of prospects to the Cubs for veteran starter Matt Garza, who beat Oakland in a game earlier this season.

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  4. Well, I got all excited and cocky last night when, about 9 p.m. I saw that the Rangers' ace closer, Joe Nathan, actually blew a save opportunity (!) and ended up losing to the Yankees. I was getting all fired up to post that the A's had moved to four games up on Texas as I saw our own ace closer, Grant Balfour, coming on with a 4-2 lead. But then Balfour, too, blew a save opportunity and ended up losing on an a crazy play where, with runners on first and second, Oakland's catcher recovered his pitch in the dirt, had Texas's runners both running toward the same base but then threw the ball into right field trying to throw behind the guy stranded between first and second. The lead Astro came around ahead of a desperate throw back to home, and Houston had its first win, 5-4, against Oakland in 11 tries so far this season.

    So, after an unusual and disappointing night, here we are where we were: Oakland up three games on Texas in the American League West.

    By the way, I think it's possible that Cody Keenan is an A's fan.

    I was 7 when I became an A's fan, because their uniforms looked excellent on the 1975 baseball cards and because they were coming off three straight World Series wins. Cody Keenan would've turned 7 in either 1988 or '89, and the A's looked and were great in 1988 and 1989 again. However, the 1988 and 1989 cards aren't nearly as great as the 1975 cards, and the 1988-90 A's weren't nearly as great as the 1972-74 A's.

    So, my guess is that Cody Keenan is probably a Red Sox (somewhat likely), Yankees (pretty likely) or Cubs (most likely) fan. He was at Harvard in 2007, and, by that point, everybody was going craycray for the Red Sox. However, before that, he was a high-school quarterback about an hour's drive from Yankee Stadium, and the year that he graduated Ridgefield (Conn.) High, 1998, New York won its second World Series in three seasons. Howeverhowever, Keenan is the son of a couple of ad execs who, when he was a little boy, lived in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood, where Wrigley Field is. And Keenan is apparently so nostalgic that, after graduating high school in Connecticut, Northwestern was the only school to which he applied for undergrad.

    So, ultimately, I'm guessing Cubs fan. Or not a baseball fan at all.

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  5. Oakland A's 4 at Houston A's 3. Coco Crisp's two-run homer in the seventh brings the Athletics from behind, and now they leave behind the Astros to go face more A's--the Los Angeles Angels--back home in Oakland starting tomorrow.

    Covelli Loyce Crisp, Oakland's fantastic 33-year-old center-fielder from Los Angeles, is a product of Major League Baseball's Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) youth program.

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  6. Incidentally, I think this series with the Angels could be huge. Los Angeles was the CW favorite to win the American League West this season, but the Angels, at the moment, are trying to make a 1-0 lead against Minnesota hold up so they can head north to Oakland only 11 games out of the division lead. Might losing two or three or four to the A's in this upcoming four-game series in advance of the July 31 trade deadline lure talented Los Angeles into full-bore, wait-until-next-year mode?

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  7. A's and Angels have split the opening two games of their series. Los Angeles won big in Thursday night's opener, and it appeared at the start of Friday's game that the Angels were going to just keep steamrolling.

    Nos. 2 through 4 in the Los Angeles batting order are just brutal: Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton and Mark Trumbo. Those guys combined for six hits, two runs scored and seven runs batted in Thursday night's 8-3 Angels win in Oakland. And then Trout--a 21-year-old, two-times-already All-Star who was last year's rookie of the year and MVP runnerup--clubbed a two-run homer in the top of the first Friday off of the best A's starter, creaky Bartolo Colon.

    At this point, I'm thinking, well, here we go--it was a fun first 62.3 percent of Oakland's season, but now I'm going to have to watch the real muscledudes of this division overtake my plucky #GreenCollar guys to balance last season's happy part of the narrative about my coming back around to being a baseball fan.

    But while this 45-year-old man in a Coco Crisp T-shirt was pathetically drifting into some sort of melancholy Les Nesman haze in front of a laptop screen in Madisonville, Ky., my main men were busy back in Oakland. Jed Lowrie homered in the bottom half of the first; then, Josh Reddick, who has been heating up, opened the second with a double, and set stage for a go-ahead, three-run inning (in which Lowrie struck again, with a two-run single). Later in the sixth, Stephen Vogt--the catcher the A's called up when John Jaso went on the DL the other day--homered himself and Reddick, who singled to open that inning, home to expand the Oakland advantage.

    Meanwhile, ol' Bartolo had settled in for another fantastic start (our 40-year-old All-Star from Altamira, Dominican Republic, is now 14-3 with a 2.54 earned-run average on the season), and Grant Balfour, the A's closer who blew a save for the first time in a year earlier this week, managed to strike out Trout and Hamilton around some shakiness that produced a couple of Angel runs in the ninth to cap the 6-4 victory. For our 35-year-old All-Star from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, that's 27th saves this season after 24 saves last season (but only 10 total saves in his 323 appearances, all but one in relief, with three teams in the 11 years prior).

    So, hooray!

    Finally, it was a delightful bonus to flip by MLB.com for a few seconds last night in a rare break in Disney Junior programming on the television sets in my house and catch some Cleveland Indian slug a walk-off home run in extra innings against the Texas Rangers! As of this morning, the A's (60-43) lead the American League West by four games over the Rangers, by 11 over both the Mariners and Angels and 25.5 over the Astros. #GREENCOLLAR!

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  8. The Angels, who lead 1-0 in the bottom of the third inning of today's third game of a four-game series in Oakland, are batting second the Kentucky High School Baseball Coaches Association's 2004 "Mr. Baseball." Right-fielder Collin Cowgill, who starred at Lexington Henry Clay and then UK, was picked up in a trade with the New York Mets last month. In 61 at-bats with the Mets this season, the former A hit .180; in 14 at-bats for the Angels since he arrived June 25, Cowgill is hitting .500. He has singled and grounded out so far today.

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    1. Through three innings, it's still the Angels by 1-0. Josh Donaldson just left a man on third--that's Oakland's third LOB of the game, and Donaldson's batting average just dipped below .300 on the season.

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  9. A's up, 3-1, in top of eighth ... one out, none on ... Trout has 2-2 count ... this seems like a good time for Los Angeles to give up on this season and go ahead and trade Trout for maximum value ...

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    1. Trout stole second, but no other Angels can get on base ... we're headed to the bottom of the eighth ...

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    2. 3-1, Oakland, holds up. Balfour again gets the save. Huge, huge win.

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  10. A's, down 5-0 after two innings and 6-5 after five and a half, now have 7-6 lead in bottom of sixth with man on second, none out and Coco Crisp coming to the plate against the Angels.

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    1. Coco sacrifices the runner, Eric Sogard, to third, and then Jed Lowrie--who has been murder in this series--doubles Sogard home. It's 8-6, and the Angels are changing pitchers.

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    2. Josh Donaldson walk ... Brandon Moss single ... Yoénis Cespedes double ... it's now 10-6, one out, A's on second and third ...

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    3. Pop out, strikeout ... OK, on to the seventh ...

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    4. Sean Doolittle retires Mike Trout to end the Angel eighth, and it remains 10-6, Oakland ...

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  11. Oakland 62-43
    Texas 56-49, 6.0 games back
    Seattle 50-55, 12.0
    Los Angeles 48-55, 13.0
    Houston 35-69, 22.0

    Blue Jays are headed to Oakland, and Angels visit Texas to start series tomorrow. Wow. This is starting to get a little scary. #GreenCollar.

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  12. A's up, 3-0, with no out and man on third in bottom of first against visiting Blue Jays ...

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    1. Notes Paul Gutierrez of CSNBayArea.com, "A year ago, Cespedes batted a team-leading .292 and hit 23 home runs with 82 RBI while Reddick hit .242 with team highs in homers (32) and RBI (85). Entering Monday, they were on pace for lines of .226/23/73 and .216/8/53, respectively."

      Yoénis Cespedes and Josh Reddick combined for four hits in nine at-bats--a single, a double, a triple and a home run--and produced three runs scored and six batted in as Oakland beat visiting Toronto, 9-4.

      The Swingin' A's remain six games up on the Rangers in the American League West and join the Rays as the first teams in the majors this season to reach 63 victories. Both teams are 63-43; St. Louis has baseball's best winning percentage, with a 62-41 record.

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  13. The Angels actually had three Kentucky "Mr. Baseball" honorees on its roster before trading reliever Scott Downs to Atlanta. Downs won it in 1994 with Louisville PRP; outfielder Colin Cowgill won it in 2004 with Lexington Henry Clay, and starting pitcher Joe Blanton (another former A) won it in 1999 with Franklin-Simpson.

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    1. Kentucky's all-time top 10 baseballers, per Peter Arnsberg at KentuckySports.co:

      -- Pete Browning of Louisville,
      -- Chicken Wolf of Louisville,
      -- Gus Weyhing of Louisville,
      -- Bobby Veach of Island,
      -- Carl Mays of Liberty,
      -- Earle Combs of Pebworth,
      -- Paul Derringer of Springfield,
      -- Pee Wee Reese of Louisville,
      -- Jim Bunning of Southgate and
      -- Travis Fryman of Lexington.

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  14. The Blue Jays shut out the A's, 5-0, last night, and the Rangers won, so Texas is back within five games. You can't get cocky.

    Also, in advance of today's league trading deadline (one of the deadlines, there's some other different-terms deadline later in the season), Oakland did what all of the Mr. Big Pants Divisions Leaders do--we went out and pillaged a big star from one of baseball's also rans to bolster our lineup with a big-name star for the stretch run. So, the HP's #GreenCollar desk this morning sends out a very rousing welcome to the newest Swingin' A, Alberto Callaspo! Oakland Tuesday traded a former first-round pick who was hitless in 15 at-bats this season, infielder Grant Green, to the fading Angels for a 30-year-old second baseman and my main man from Maracay, Venezuela.

    Maracay sounds nice at Wikipedia:

    Maracay (Spanish pronunciation: [maɾaˈkai]) is a city in north-central Venezuela, near the Caribbean coast, and is the capital and most important city of the state of Aragua. Most of it falls under the jurisdiction of the Girardot Municipality. The population of Maracay and its surroundings as per the 2011 census was 955,362. ...

    Maracay experienced rapid growth during Juan Vicente Gómez's dictatorship (1908–1935). Gómez saw Maracay as a suitable place to make his residence during his rule, and ordered the construction of an Arc of Triumph, a bull plaza (a near replica of the one in Seville, Spain), an Ópera house, a Zoo, and, most notably, the Hotel Jardín (Garden Hotel), a majestic, tourist attraction with very large gardens. The city is home to the Mausoleo de Gómez (Gómez's mausoleum), where the dictator's remains are stored.

    ... The city's Bullfight arena is the only "Maestranza" (bullfighting school) in the country. At the present day is called "Maestranza Cesar Girón."


    Maracay claims also as its natives Miguel Cabrera, the Tigers' third baseman who won the 2012 American League MVP and "triple crown," as well as Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus and Astros second baseman José Altuve, who've both been tough against the A's this season, and--GET THIS!--Davey Concepción!

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  15. The A's are facing knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, the 2012 Cy Young winner who went to Nashville's Montgomery Bell Academy, which is one of those schools that seems like it gets to play Louisville Trinity in football every so often. Anyway, Dickey and his knuckleballs are really befuddling the A's. It's 2-1, Toronto, in the bottom of the fifth, and the A's have a man on second with two out. Yoénis Cespedes just struck out swinging at three pitches, none of which went faster than 80 miles and hour ...

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    1. BUT BRANDON MOSS REACHES ON TORONTO'S FOURTH FIELDING ERROR OF THE DAY, AND ERIC SOGARD COMES AROUND TO SCORE FROM SECOND! IT'S 2-2! #GREENCOLLAR!!!

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    2. Indeed, Trinity beat MBA in Louisville in 2011, 66-21, and in Nashville last season, 27-23. The two teams are not playing this season. Kentucky's Class 6A champs open Aug. 23 at home against a team from Ensworth, Tenn.

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    3. Through six innings, it remains 2-2 in Oakland. Coco Crisp ends the A half by grounding a knuckleball to the third baseman, stranding a runner at third. That's eight LOBs for Oakland today; the A's have zero hits against R.A. Dickey in their 10 at-bats with runners in scoring position ...

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    4. Jose Bautista, the Blue Jays' rightfielder, already has 25 home runs, and that doesn't even lead the American League! In fact, it doesn't even lead his own team! Chris Davis of the Orioles has 38, and then Miguel Cabrera of Maracay, Venezuela, has 32, and then Edwin Encarnacion, Toronto's designated hitter in this game, has 28. Bautista is tied for sixth in the American League with his 25.

      Anyway, Bautista just struck out at the end of the Toronto seventh. Encarnacion is due up next inning. It's still 2-2.

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    5. Ah, good ... Alberto Callaspo makes his A's debut as a pinch-hitter ... but flies out to open the seventh ...

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    6. The good news is that MBA R.A. and his knuckleball are done for the day; the bad news is that Yoénis just popped out against some Blue Jay reliever to end the seventh. It's still 2-2.

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    7. Encarnacion groundout to open the eighth, and now the A's are doing their typical bullpen thing. Ryan Cook came on to replace Bartolo Colon last inning, now Sean Doolittle is replacing Ryan Cook. If Doolittle holds and Oakland scratches out a run in the bottom half, we'd typically see Grant Balfour for the ninth ...

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    8. OK, Doolittle does his part. We're headed to bottom of the eighth, and it's still 2-2. Time to go get on the shirt!

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    9. Man on first, one out and 3-1 count to Seth Smith ... MLB.com's automated scout thingy reports in, "Dangerous count for Aaron Loup; Seth Smith is a dead-red fastball hitter, with a .885 OPS against them this season and .698 against everything else." Indeed, Smith singles Josh Donaldson to second, and Toronto is going to change pitchers again! GO, A'S!!!

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    10. And the new Blue Jays pitcher is going to be Steve Delabar, a Fort Knox native who went to Central Hardin High in Cecilia!

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    11. Delabar strikes out Chris Young ... two out, A's still at first and second ... Stephen Vogt is the hitter ...

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    12. And Delabar strikes out Vogt ... still 2-2, headed to the ninth ...

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    13. A's are going to Balfour, anyway. This makes me nervous. He has 28 saves and a 1.93 earned-run average, but he's 0-2 in decisions. Everything makes me nervous. Baseball is so hard.

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    14. Strikeout ... come on, A's ...

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    15. STRIKEOUT! HOORAY FOR GRANT BALFOUR, AND HOORAY FOR BOB MELVIN, AND HOORAY FOR THE A'S! Headed to bottom of the ninth, still 2-2! Due up:

      -- Coco "Shirt" Crisp!
      -- "Newest A" Alberto Callaspo!
      -- "The Legend of" Jed Lowrie!

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    16. Oh, good ... the Blue Jays have replaced Cecilia Steve Delabar with some pitcher from Orange, Calif. ...

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    17. Coco's out ... he's been cold as all get-out since the All-Star break ... here comes Callaspo ...

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    18. Strikeout ... he's 0-for-2 as an A ... it's too early to say this trade was a bad one for the A's, however ... the guy Oakland traded for him was 0-for-15 this season ... two out ... here comes Jed Lowrie ...

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    19. Ground out ... extra innings ... BASEBALL! SO HARD! ...

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    20. Jane Lee ‏@JaneMLB
      Jesse Chavez gets the 10th inning. And, if need be, probably the 11th, 12th, 13th too.
      5:25 PM - 31 Jul 13

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    21. One out with man at second (leadoff man singled off ex-Jay Chavez and advanced on Vogt passed ball) ... now here come the Blue Jay big boys, Bautista and Encarnacion ...

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    22. ARGH!!! Bautista doubles home the runner, and now Chavez is intentionally walking Encarnacion ... still one out, runners to be on first and second ... Toronto leads, 3-2 ...

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    23. Jane Lee's great, but she was wrong about Chavez. Here comes a new A reliever, Jerry Blevins ...

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    24. Oh, for Pete's sake, THROW A STRIKE! 2-0 count to next Blue Jay with bases loaded ...

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    25. Single ... two more Toronto runs ... another pitching change ... to Bert Campaneris, presumably ...

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    26. Campaneris ends the bleeding. 5-2 to the bottom of the 10th ...

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  16. The A's lost another game after this last one, which added up to three Ls in a row. Meanwhile, the Rangers put together five straight wins, including an 8-3 win Friday night in Oakland where it seemed like Texas could've just kept hanging two-run inning on top of two-run inning on the A's straight through tea if this were The Ashes.

    So today Oakland's division lead was down to 2.5 games, and here came the Rangers back with Matt Garza, the stud pitcher they picked up from the Cubs right before last week's trade deadline. I was scared to death.

    But a strange series of things happened in the bottom of the first.

    Coco Crisp, our leadoff man whose average had dipped to below .250 since basically getting no hits since the All-Star break, comes up and bunts down the third base line for a single. I think it was the first pitch. I've watched a lot of MLB.com animation of A's games this summer, and I don't think I remember seeing Coco start off a game by bunting the opening pitch. Anyway, he gets on.

    Next up is Eric Sogard, who has been hot enough in the second half to be promoted to the second spot in the order. He bunts, too! And, again, I think it was the first pitch. Garza fields the ball and throws Sogard out at first, but now we've got Coco at second.

    Then comes Jed Lowrie, who, at .293, is one of only two A's with a batting average better than .271 (and that's counting everyone, even the guys with only a handful of at-bats), and he singles into left, scoring Coco.

    And then comes Yoénis Cespedes, who has not been hot enough to merit promotion anywhere higher into the order but got slotted at cleanup presumably on a hunch, and my main man from Campechuela HOMERS TO GIVE OAKLAND A 3-0 LEAD IN THE BOTTOM OF THE FIRST!

    And, man, oh, man, hooray that he did, because the A's ended up failing to score again but held on for a 3-2 victory to blunt the Texas charge at least for today. Hooray for Coco, Sogard, Lowrie and Cespedes! Hooray for the four A's pitchers--Jarrod Parker, Sean Doolittle, Ryan Cook and Grant Balfour--who held Texas at bay! And hooray, most of all, for Manager Bob Melvin!

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    1. Pardon ... A's won, 4-2 ... they picked up a run late after the Rangers had crept back to within 3-2. I quit paying any too close attention to MLB.com when the game got that tight because I thought I might be jinxing the A's. Instead, I went on a David Foster Wallace jag.

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