UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: HE LOST ANOTHER GAME TODAY. BILLY’S GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE SOME TOUGH CHOICES IN THE NEXT DAY OR SO.
HEADLINE: READ ALL ABOUT IT. HAMMEL PITCHED BADLY AND THE A’S LOST LAST NIGHT TO THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL TEXAS RANGERS. WHAT WILL BILLY DO? WHAT WILL MELVIN DO? THERE MIGHT, IN FACT, BE CRYING IN BASEBALL.

This is the last one, at least for a while. Writing two chapters a week about the adventures of Cecilia is usually all I can manage. But, as previously mentioned, these three things were bugging me. So I’ll get on with it and then you won’t likely hear from me, at least until I get riled about something else.

But before I launch into it (baseball), I find it astounding that I write my pieces, and within a day or two the majors pick up on the same points. The tunnels in Gaza? – one day lag and Anne Bernard writes about them in the NY Times, albeit insufficiently. Ukraine? Major media outlets and my favorite economic columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, discuss the economic symbiosis between the countries in western Europe and Russia. Always ahead of the curve.

Now, to the topic du jure – baseball. We’re well past the mid-point, which is really 4/7’s the season gone. The All Star game is done, won illegitmately by the American League with a ball called fair that was really a foul that ended up scoring the final two runs. Mike Trout was deservedly selected as the MVP and got a corvette out of the deal. Yuch. But at least my boys, the Oakland A’s, are still ahead of the entire pack. BUT (why is it there’s always a but?) the second place team in the AL West, the Los Angeles Angels, are hot on their heels. So yes, gentle reader, that means the top two teams in baseball are in the AL west. That’s good, you say? No, that is bad. And why would that be, you ask? Here’s why.

Billy Beane, the wunderkind GM of the A’s, Mr. Moneyball himself, pulled off a trade that the baseball media thought was a coup. He got Jeff Samardzjia and Jason Hammel from the Chicago Cubs, in exchange for some change and top minor league prospects. Great! New blood in the bull pen, you say? Not so fast. In both their initial outings, neither pitcher has been exceptional. In fact, I’d argue Hammel is a disaster and will likely be traded by or near the end of the season. Samardzjia was supposed to be the plum in the trade. But in order to manage the financial end of this, Tommy Milone had to go back down to the minors. That’s the bad part.

Tommy has been with the A’s, up and down from the farm team, for two years. I’d argue the team likes him, and he’s a decent, left-handed pitcher. Pulling in these two guys and sacrificing Milone has upset the balance within the team. They continue to win – sort of – but they aren’t on fire as they were. Oops – there I go with the emotional words. Let me rephrase that: their statistical averages have deteriorated since this bone-headed move was made by Bean Ball Billy. That’s better.

But, you’d argue, there’s time before the World Series for the new guys to settle in and start to perform at their potential – at least Samardzjia? BTW – that’s pronounced SA MAR JA. I pronounce it SMUR JA, as I’ve developed an instinctive dislike for this pitcher, this deal and fear the impact on the team, as you can read from previous words. Back to the point – there’s time for this to work out before it gets serious and important in October, right? But there’s a problem with messing around now: and that problem is called the LA Angels.

There’s a huge logistical and psychological advantage to winning the division, versus being a wild card team for the playoffs. Winning the division gives you more rest time before you have to compete. Wild card teams are dragged from pillar to post, having to prove their worthiness in order to continue to advance. So you want to enter the playoffs as the division winner. If LA pulls ahead and stays ahead – even if by one win – that would be bad. So, the A’s don’t have time to monkey around getting these new pitchers settled in. They just don’t. And if Bob Melvin, the team’s manager, is forced out of deference to Billy’s Folly, to continue to use these two guys, I predict a bad end. And now I read that Tommy wants to be traded. Nay, I say, Nay! Billy: admit you blew it, move Hammel and bring Tommy back. If you fail to do this, you might not make it to the pennant, and I’m sure you won’t play in the World Series. So there…the soothsayer has spoken. Watch, wait and hopefully, don’t weep. Wait..no! Everybody knows: there’s no crying in baseball.

POST SCRIPT: Okay, so Smurja had a decent day yesterday. But I’m not ready to concede yet. Hammel pitches tonight against Texas. Texas has the worst record in baseball, so it should be easy, right? We’ll see…