Saturday and Sunday in Oakland

I want to start off with Saturday night’s game.  I know Tex hasn’t made any errors in 100 games (that is excellent) and he didn’t make any on Saturday, but did anyone notice how he once again fell while catching a ball to his right without stepping that way.  He made the catch, which was not hard, but he didn’t stretch toward the ball or even step toward it.  It was like he stretched too soon yet still made the play.  It is very odd. 

It was nice to see us get a lead and then ride the BMW (Betances, Miller, Win).  The Twin Towers ™ have been great.

Sunday was one of those times where we had a lot of hits early on and couldn’t cash in and then did nothing.  The key AB was with 2 guys on base and one out, Tex had a 3-0 count on him.  I am not sure if he had the green light but the pitcher (Chavez) made a nice pitch up and in for a strike.  He then painted the outside corner with a fastball and Tex did a good job of not swinging at it as I am sure he was zoning a pitch to do some damage with.  Chavez then threw another perfect pitch on the outside edge and Tex swung through it.  He had a good swing but just missed it.  Beltran then got out and that ended the inning and a huge opportunity.

The game was scoreless until Vogt took a pretty good inside pitch from Warren and muscled it up and over the RF fence.  He didn’t crush it but he had underspin on it (which gave it carry) and the wind was blowing out to RF and it kept going.  With the game still only a 2 run game Girardi went to Rodgers somewhat inexplicably with 2 lefties, a switch and a lefty coming up (which is 4 lefties).  Rodgers OPS against lefties is .985 and against righties it is .679.  Rodgers has not been pitching well, but he has been awful against lefties.  He did get the first batter out and I thought maybe he will get through it, but then allowed 2 hits before coming out of the game to bring in a lefty (a little late Joe?) who allowed a sac fly to make the score 3-0.

Tex made a nice play on a line drive that he immediately turned and tagged the runner out before he could get back to the bag.  The catch was not so hard, but his awareness to quickly tag the runner was a heads up play.  BTW, the runner (Butler) did everything correctly to get back to the bag, it was just unlucky.  I say that because Didi got doubled off on a very bad baserunning play on a line drive to 2^nd that he took a few steps before stopping and couldn’t get back in time.