Oakland Signs Esteban Loaiz-huh??

Yeah, I don't get it either. I'm not even trying to "get" it.

"We're giving Esteban friggin Loaiza twenty one million dollars? Okie-dokie."

--Me, to myself.

I guess the first ASSumption everyone is making is that we're trading Zito. I guess that'd be a fair ASSumption to make, considering what occured last off-season. But wasn't everyone ASSuming that we'd make "one last run with the Big 3" just one year ago? I know I was.

My assuming days are over. Remember when I thought we'd make a deadline deal? Or when I thought we fired Macha? Yeah, that was stupid. Fool me twice...

I'll leave the assuming to you dopes.

We're trading Zito for a power, right-handed bat! Billy's intentionally ruining the market for the Angels and Rangers! We're trading Zito for Conor Jackson and Carlos Quentin! By over-paying for Loaiza, Billy's driving up the price for Saarloos, Kennedy and Cruz! We're trading Zito for Dunn! We're signing Nomar next!

I don't know what the hell this all means. Billy does and, really, that's all that matters. He's made good moves before and he's made terrible moves before. I'm going to wait until all the dominos fall until I form my final opinion.

So "In Billy we Trust" and all that bullshit. We're all rooting for the name on the front, not the names on the back, right?

Blown Jobs - Ricardo Rincon Edition

For as bad as people make Rincon out to be, he only had two blown saves this season. And our mighty A's came back to win both of those games.

Blown Save Number: 1
4/17/2005
Anaheim at Oakland

Kirk Saarloos got off to a rocky start, giving up three runs in his first two innings against the Angels. However, he took a lead into the third, as our A's scored two runs in the first and two runs in the second. Saarloos settled down and didn't allow another run over the next three innings. After walking Jeff Davanon and giving up a single to Vladimir Guerrero to start the sixth, he was pulled in favor of Ricardo Rincon. Rincon quickly fell behind Garrett Anderson 2-0...then gave up a three-run homerun. Rincon would retire Steve Finley before being pulled in favor of Huston Street.

The Angels took a two-run lead into the bottom of the sixth, but it quickly disappeared after a Scott Hatteberg single and Marco Scutaro two-run homer. The A's lead would hold up and they'd go on to win 7-6. Huston Street would pick up his first Major League victory and Octavio Dotel would pick up his first (and only???) save of the season.

Anaheim - 7, Oakland - 6


Blown Save Number: 2
7/5/2005
Oakland at Toronto

Bottom of 7th ............................. Score
Ricardo Rincon pitching for Oakland ...... OAK TOR
R Rincon relieved D Haren. ................ 5 . 4
O Hudson homered to center. ............... 5 . 5

That's pretty much that. We'd go on to win in 11.

Oakland - 10, Toronto - 7

These were just a couple of cases of Rincon failing to do his job.

Macha's still having him face WAY too many right-handers, but with only one lefty in the 'pen for a majority of the year, I'm willing to cut him a little more slack than I have in previous years.


Up next: Justin Duchscherer.

Previous blown jobs: Joe Kennedy, Jay Witasick.