A's in a 3-0 hole

Kenny Rogers Acknowledges the Detroit Fans

I watched glumly today as the Oakland Athletics fell meekly to Kenny Rogers and the Detroit Tigers in the third game of the American League Championship Series. After losing the first two games of this best of seven series, this game was basically a "must-win". With this loss the A's must now win four straight games in order to advance to the World Series--a feat previously achieved only once in the long history of baseball (by the 2004 Boston Red Sox).

And now the post mortem:
Coming off perhaps the most impressive game of his career, wherein he held the vaunted Yankees lineup scoreless for 7 and 2/3 innings, Kenny Rogers was masterful in handling the light hitting A's yesterday. The 41-year-old left hander mystified Oakland batters with finesse and deception in 7 and 1/3 shutout innings. While Rogers did not display his emotions as openly as in ALDS against the Yankees, his intensity and desire were just as evident.

Meanwhile, Oakland's "brain trust" elected to send Rich Harden to the mound in Game 3 instead of Dan Haren. Harden, a potential ace, missed practically the whole season with an elbow injury. Though he clearly lacked his best stuff and was stuggling with command for much of the game, Harden held Detroit to three runs through 5 and 2/3.

Harden and the A's bullpen pitched well enough to keep the A's close, but the A's were clearly overmatched against Rogers in yesterday's 3-0 loss. Hoping to stave off elimination, the Athletics will send out Dan Haren to face the Tigers' Jeremy Bonderman in Game 4 today.

Hopefully we can avoid a sweep. A full fledged series comback is probably too much to hope for with this determined, but less than fearsome, Oakland lineup. Let's take it one game at a time.

The Time Has Come

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

excerpted from:
The Walrus and The Carpenter
from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872
by Lewis Carroll

Backdating the Present to Update the Past

This blogging endeavor, like so much else, has been lost in the maelstrom of my day-to-day life. Though I have not posted in quite some time, I have in fact been writing more or less continual entries. Now, with some time on my hands, I hope to edit, expand, and post those entries.

Due to the linear date based nature of the posting system, few would notice my back postings if I dated this post accurately. So I'm backdating the present postings to update you, my loyal audience of four, on my recent past. My posting timeline may look a bit topsy-turvy for a little while, but I think it'll be an effective way of catching up.