KTE - Down In Oakland, I'm Gonna Find Them

[seawolf17]

The Mets have faced every team in the major leagues during the regular season - except the Oakland A's. That will change this week; let's take a look at how the former AL West powerhouse stacks up.

With a rotation featuring perennial All-Stars Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson, and Barry Zito, and a bullpen led by Octavio Dotel and Jason Isringhausen, this offense doesn't need to be good; but with bats like Jason Giambi, Eric Chavez, Miguel Tejada, Carney Lansford, Rickey Henderson, Jose Canseco, and Mark McGwire in your lineup, these guys will mash with the best of them.

Wait... what's that? Most of those guys aren't on the team anymore? Wow... upon further research, it would appear that this year's version of the Oakland Athletics BLOWS. They're last in HR, last in OPS, last in the AL West; and things don't look good.

The rotation has sucked; dealing Mulder and Hudson hasn't worked out yet, although the jury still has a long way to go. The offense has been ugly, to say the least; but 2004 AL ROY SS Bobby Crosby has been hurt, 3B Eric Chavez has been mediocre so far, and other than that... well, let's just say that if this team was as good at the plate as outfielder Eric Byrnes is at stopping wackos from climbing the outfield walls, they'd be closer than 11 games out. (Okay, bad analogy. Forget it and move on to the pitching matchups.)

The pitching matchups
Tues 6/14, 10 PM EST - Joe Blanton (1-6, 6.13) vs Tommy Glavine (4-5, 4.56)
Weds 6/15, 10 PM EST - Dan Haren (4-7, 4.28) vs Victor "Don't Call Me Carlos" Zambrano (3-6, 4.26)
Thur 6/16, 3:30 PM EST - Ryan Glynn (0-2, 5.73) vs Kris Benson (4-2, 3.74)

Who's Hot?
Eva Longoria. But that's not important right now. Other than that:
Eric Chavez is hitting .436 with six homers in June.
Rookie closer Huston Street has retired 18 of the past 23 batters he's faced over five outings.
CF Mark Kotsay is 6-for-19 (.316) with a triple in his career against Tom Glavine.
On Thursday in DC, Joe Blanton gave up four runs on seven hits while striking out a career-high six in a 4-3 loss to the Nationals.

Who's Not?
"Momma" from "Throw Momma From The Train." She was great in that, great in "Goonies," but let's face it, she's not exactly a dreamboat.
Ryan Glynn pitched well in his first start (seven innings, three runs) but was pounded for four runs in four innings his last time out.

Interleague Intrigue
No team in baseball has a better record than the A's in the history of interleague play: they are 88-61.
Incredibly, Mike Piazza still leads all active players in interleague batting average at .351.

Makin' History
Last time the Mets were in Oakland -- 11,559 days ago:
October 21, 1973
Athletics 5, Mets 2 (A's win series 4-3)
WP - Ken Holtzman
LP - Jon Matlack
SV - Darold Knowles
HR - Bert Campaneris, Reggie Jackson

Power Outage
Despite their bashing history, no team in baseball has hit less home runs than the 2005 A's; they're tied for 29th with Seattle at 41. The club leader is Eric Chavez (10), who has rebounded from a slow start.

Can I Buy An Unusually Doubled Vowel?
Keiichi Yabu (A's P)
Kazuhiro Ishii (Mets P)
Kirk Saarloos (A's P)
Aaron Heilman (Mets P)
Williie Randolph (Mets MGR)
Chris Woodwaard (Mets IF/OF)

Ex-Mets
IF Marco Scutaro (.246, 3 HR, 17 RBI)
OF Matt Watson (.152, 0, 3)
RP Octavio Dotel, who will be out for the year after undergoing TJ surgery.
GM Billy Beane, who is not expected to play in this series.

Ex-A's
None, unless you count DL'ed pitcher Tyler Yates, who was an A's throw-in prospect acquired in the David Justice/Mark Guthrie deal.

All-Time "They Played For Both Clubs" All-Star Team
1B Dave Kingman
2B Willie Randolph
3B Dave Magadan
SS Mike "Welcome A" Bordick
C Charlie O'Brien
OF Kevin Mitchell
OF Terrence Long
OF Rickey "Rickey" Henderson

PH Rich Becker (*)
1B Mike Jorgensen
UT Tony Phillips
IF Marco Scutaro
C Tom Wilson
OF Billy Beane

SP Kevin Appier
SP Ron Darling
SP Cory Lidle
SP Kenny Rogers
SP Mike Torrez
CL Jason Isringhausen
LOOGY Mark Guthrie
RP Octavio Dotel
RP Billy Taylor
RP Jeff Tam
RP Jack Aker

MGR Art Howe
COACH Rick Peterson

* struck out swinging for Wendell in the 8th

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Very nice.

Mets in Oakland. All I can think about are those last two games in 1973.

Maybe I can invite George Stone to join us here. I've had pretty good luck reeling in ex-Mets.

[Guest cooby]

Makin' History
Last time the Mets were in Oakland -- 11,559 days ago:
October 21, 1973


Neat stat!

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Nicely done Seawolf.

This is why I don't do KTEs - how does a person hope to compete with this?

The only thing I'll add is that the A's did take two out of three from the Evil Braves this past weekend.

It'll be interested in seeing whether Randolph's managerial strategy changes substantially in an American League park with the DH.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Get George Stone here NOW!!!!

[Guest Rotblatt]

Very nice, seawolf! I'm looking forward to this series . . .

[seawolf17]

I love doing KTEs. I'd log a KTE before every series on the official site if the club wanted.

[metirish]

excellent seawolf, was that your first KTE?,it was catchy, informative and fun, I think we have a star in seawolf...enough sucking up...the A's are so bad that Moneyball Beane told Ken Macha to "do whatever it takes to win games", thus the A's have been stealing bases, bunting and just about all the things Beane hates.

[seawolf17]

I KTEd the Nats a while back on the old site; I'd bet it's lost now.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

My only complaint is that seawolf didn't include a photo of Eva Longoria.

[seawolf17]

="Yancy Street Gang"]My only complaint is that seawolf didn't include a photo of Eva Longoria.

.

Done.

[Willets Point]

]Rickey "Rickey" Henderson

lol

[MFS62]

Well done.
Bravo.

How will the rest of us follow that act?

I didn't remember that Billy Beane had actually made it to the big club with the Mets.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

]How will the rest of us follow that act?

By including mulitple pictures of Eva Longoria!!!

]I didn't remember that Billy Beane had actually made it to the big club with the Mets.

2 singles & a double in 18 ABs over 2 seasons ('84-'85).

The guy that scouted and recommended him just retired last year to all sorts of acclaim for his great scouting/front office career -- I'm guessing that this pick wasn't on his highlight reel.

[Centerfield]

PH Rich Becker (*)

* struck out swinging for Wendell in the 8th

Fantastic. I'm dying here.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

If you want to see the enemy in action, these commercials - [url]http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/oak/fan_forum/commercials_2005.jsp[/url] - are hysterical.

[Guest SI Metman]

Well one thing is for sure, Blanton, Haren and Glynn are no Hudson, Mulder and Zito, or even Rich Harden.

[Guest Spacemans Bong]

I'll be at all 3 games.

Look for the banner with "Seaver shoulda started in 7". :P

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

OK Bonger. We' expect a full report.

That commercial with Kotsay is hilarious. The rest... eh.

[metirish]

Bong no messing here, I'll be looking for that banner, Gary Cohen and Howie Rose started talking aobut Seaver and game seven the other night but they stopped because they said that whole thing could go on all night, Howie reckoned Gary is still upset about it and going to Oakland will bring it all back out......

[seawolf17]

="metirish"]Bong no messing here, I'll be looking for that banner, Gary Cohen and Howie Rose started talking aobut Seaver and game seven the other night but they stopped because they said that whole thing could go on all night, Howie reconked Gary is still upset about it and going to Oakland will bring it all back out......

I've stared at it for three minutes, and I can't figure out what "reconked" means. Did Howie conk Gary once, a long time ago, and was just now reconking him?

[metirish]

reckoned.....my bad.

[seawolf17]

Ah! It makes sense now. I get it. Sorry, Irish. Nothing personal, I promise.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Last year's commercials were a bit better, IMO -



[url]http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/oak/fan_forum/commercials_2004.jsp[/url]

[metirish]

thanks for posting the link to the commercials , excellent stuff, why can't the Mets do stuff like that, is this unique to the A's?, my faves form last year are...1..screaming girls, 2. Hudson = MC2 - 3 Dugout phone...from this year..1 -the old man and 2 - Harden Run-In.., great stuff.

[Centerfield]

why can't the Mets do stuff like that

I reconk it has something to do with money. It's probably much cheaper to throw up some billboards at bus stops about how next year is actually last year or something like that...

[seawolf17]

I like the taco one. Teaching someone to say something silly in another language is always a good time.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

My boys loved Crosby in the Video Game Rookie ad. The funniest thing to them was when they were watching a video game cable tv channel (G4? Something like that) and they saw something about Crosby actually being in a video game <g>

Why can't the Mets do something like that? Archer/Istanbul/Whatever has heard me ask that question for years now.

There was also a good crop of '02 A's ads that aren't available any longer. The best was called Clang, and featured Eric Chavez playing ball with his Gold Glove.