Currently, the A's are on my shitlist. Not because I hold some residual bitterness from 1973, because that was 6 years before I was born, but because of something they did earlier this week, totally under the radar. I know the A's aren't going anywhere this season and they're generally one of the more active teams around the trade deadline, but they went and dealt their two best relief pitchers, Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson, to the Fucking Nationals, thereby strengthening their weak spot. I mean, what the fuck? Why help those clowns out? Now, I know that Billy Beane is a pretty shrewd judge of talent, to the point where I'd be leery of dealing him prospects he wants, simply because if he wants someone that badly, he may know something you don't. I'm not certain that was in play here, because I don't know who Oakland got in return (and in fact I didn't even know about the trade until 2 days after it happened), and, I'm not sure I care. The A's are by and large never the Mets problem. We have to see the Fucking Nationals 44 times a year and dammit, I don't want them getting any better. In fact, I'd like to see the other 29 teams purposely collude to NOT trade them pitching help and let them inevitably screw things up on their own. To wit: The Mets themselves have a few relief pitchers on the trading block, and Sandy Alderson has essentially said outright that he wouldn't trade them to the Fucking Nationals.
So, yeah. The A's pissed me off. So hopefully, the Mets teach them a lesson this weekend. They got off to a good start this evening, running out to a lead thanks to a pair of Home Runs from Michael Conforto and 5 solid, if unspectacular, innings from Steven Matz, and then surviving a hairy late charge by the A's to win the series opener, 7-5.
I'd like to talk about Matz and Conforto a little more, but of course since it was Friday and I wasn't at the game, I went home and fell asleep, and by time I woke up and put the game on, it was the 8th inning and Erik Goeddel was busy making a mess of things. He'd gotten lit up by Josh Phegley and Jed Lowrie, and then was removed in favor of Addison Reed, probably earlier than one would prefer, and, well, he wasn't good. He walked Rajai Davis and gave up another run-scoring hit by Marcus Semien, and then he was removed for Jerry Blevins. Because when you think 5-out Save, you think Jerry Blevins.
So, of course, Blevins got the 5-out Save. He got around Yonder Alonso and Khris Davis, the punch in Oakland's lineup, to finish the 8th and got through the 9th rather quietly to seal the victory.
Now, of course, the Mets did plate some of their runs against Blake Treinen, one of the pitchers Oakland acquired in their trade with Washington, if you can take some consolation from that. I wouldn't. In fact, I'd rather have the Mets take out Treinen with him still in a Washington uniform. I mean, Conforto hit his two Home Runs off of Paul Blackburn and Frankie Montas, the latter being another Beane Deadline Special, acquired from the Dodgers last season. Where I'm going with this now, I'm not sure. I guess the bottom line is that generally when Beane is making deals, usually nothing good comes from it.
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