The A's pathetic play continues and it is time to make some major changes. It starts with the manager because these plays are all based on him.
Poor baserunning decisions continue to plague the A's. This time it was Kurt Suzuki not paying attention to what was going on and running just on contact on a ball hit directly to Mark Teixeira for an easy double play.
A previous play was a Ryan Sweeney double and third base coach Mike Gallego only choosing to pay attention to the fact where the ball was and not glancing to see where Mark Ellis—the runner from first—who slowed down to make sure the ball landed.
These are mistakes that should be made in Spring Training not during the regular season. The mistakes are getting costly for the A's because their offense is even more dismal than last year.
Geren continues to amaze with his stupid decisions.
Like leaving Dana Eveland in after giving up four runs in the second inning to the Yankees. Eveland needs to be removed from the starting rotation and be put in the bullpen.
Put Sean Gallagher back into the rotation because now that Dan Giese has been brought up from Triple A and Jerry Blevins has moved back down to Triple A, the A's have no left handed reliever.
Yet, Geren doesn't get the fact that Eveland is not a good starting pitcher he's better facing couple batters out then an innings eater. The reason is he doesn't throw hard enough or have the pitching savvy to change when he is struggling with a pitch, so he gets hit hard.
Geren continues to employ strange strategies. Against Toronto, he left Giese in to pitch the bottom of the 12th when he struggled through the 10th and 11th innings specifically with location.
In the second inning of a game against the Yankees there were runners on second and third with one out. Brett Gardner is at the plate and instead of Geren playing to allow just the one run and getting the second out of the inning he brought the infield in.
Why is Geren putting the infield in during the second inning? To allow the Yankees to score two runs. So, instead of having two outs and trailing 1-0, the A's were down 2-0.
The A's would have given up only three runs in the inning instead of four, but since Geren—the clown that he is as a manager—decided to put the infield in.
There was another instance earlier in the season where Geren chose to intentionally walk a batter late in the game. Well, it's a well known fact that it's never a good idea to add a runner late in the game.
The decision came back to haunt Geren because J.D. Drew then hit a three-run homer to put the game away from the A's.
With Geren, the hope that the A's would compete in the division—that door is slamming in a hurry. The lackluster play, the horrendous decisions still being made, the lack of hitting that continues, and not knowing how to use his pitchers.
These mistakes that Geren is making are decisions that he should have been making in his first year. For example, not even reading a scouting report and leaving a pitcher in to face a batter who has destroyed that pitcher.
The decision-making process of Geren has been unacceptable and it's time for that to change. It's time for Geren to be shown the exit. If only Billy Beane could separate from the fact that Geren is not the right fit and could understand that Geren has no business being a major league manager.
If Geren continues to be manager, it's time for Lew Wolff to step in and give Beane an ultimatum: Get rid of Geren or both Geren and Beane are gone.
There's no excuse for the same mistakes to be made. In order to be an effective manager the mistakes that are made should be learned from and Geren hasn't learned anything.
- Login to post comments