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All we can say, if Verlander continues to pitch as he did against the A's in the next series, along with Max Sherzer - and those guys pitch at least two of the first four games and three of the seven, will be surprised if anyone beats them, just off those pitching performances alone. And, really, who knows what's REALLY going on with Verlander -can't comment on Sherzer. In this day and age of unnatural things - such as when a team like the SF Giants can PED their way to two World Series in three years with journeyman talent suddenly hitting like superstars (and two virtually different teams doing it - read on) in our opinion - anything can happen in baseball these days. We'll take our guys - just happy to play baseball and smaller fanbase in an old ball park, at whatever cost - anyday , over those overpaid, over-contracted , so-called 'sellouts' across the Bay. If anyone tries to tell you the Giants were able to beat Detroit but the A's weren't don't even go there. You can't argue against a team loaded up on who-knows-what (for more than a decade now) along with ownership's 'win-at-all-costs' ego (again , read blogs below for more on this if you like).
The fact of the matter is that there are no great teams in baseball this year and haven't been for the past several years. Otherwise, the Giants wouldn't have made it to the World Series twice, with or without PEDs. Not taking baseball, sports, or much of society too seriously anymore, we can still enjoy watching baseball and especially a team like the Oakland A's for what we believe it to be - a bunch of young, eager , unspoiled guys playing hard to win. Hopefully, Billy Beane won't take the A's performance against Verlander too seriously and won't make any wholesale changes in the off-season. The A's are one of the best teams in baseball, if not the best; take away Verlander's other-worldly and, perhaps, unnatural performance against the A's and they'd be right in the series now. The A's teams that lost those Game 5's over the past decade were NOT as good as this year's team. It's too bad that certain things may still be influcening the game - including that homerun, to some degree (though we have to let that go) - but that's the way it is in today's society. But, we can still speak our mind if anyone's listening.
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| Justin Verlander's Changing Velocities over course of season(s), showing surprising improvement end of last two seasons. |
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| This chart is not complete and would should a drop in ERA at the end of this 2013 season and into the playoffs, but they're averaging it with one figure per year. |
Who knows even what's up with Verlander. His numbers have looked somewhat suspect over the past couple years, with him coming on strong, suddenly, at the end of seasons 2012 and 2013 when most pitchers, if anything, lose something on the fastball. How does a pitcher improve his velocity from averaging 92 to 94 or better from the beginning to end of the season as well as not losing anything from year to year ( Five years ago Verlander was only throwing around 90 . Reminds me of the Giants' hitters (and pitchers) suddenly upping their performances the last month of the seasons in 2010 and 2012 World Series years like somebody gave them a magic pill . Ha! Nobody questions these things anymore and probably there are still dozens if not hundreds of players still using the new, undetectable designer PEDs that MLB testing has not caught up with yet - and may never. (Not a single major league player was caught this year to our knowledge; of course commissioner Selig will tell you it's because baseball is all 'clean' now). Right. Just , again , read into the below posts...
You have to start wondering about a lot of these teams and their players, seeing so many hitters going down, ie striking out, in the playoffs, not only on the A's but on the Dodgers. It's almost not even like a contest watching the St Louis Cardinal pitchers mow down the Dodgers one after another . One does have to consider after seeing things like the formerly invincible Lance Armstrong busted, Milwaukee Brewers' former good guy and MVP busted along with many others going back to guys like Aurillia and Matt Williams on the Giants - guys you would never have expected to be juicing (Mitchell Report). THE FACT THAT NO DRUG TESTING IS REQUIRED IN THE PLAYOFFS, as we believe (AS LITTLE AS ONE TEST DURING THE REGULAR SEASON ( NONE IN PREVIOUS YEARS), you just have to consider recent history and the society we're living in whether or not at least a share of what we're seeing is UNNATURAL and PED - induced.
You have to wonder how a guy like Verlander can ramp up to 97 in the LATE INNINGS of a game, this coming late in a season where he wasn't even hitting 95 in the first months.
Remember how the Giants, the team most prevalent with PED users of all for over a decade (highest number of indicted players) overpowered their opponents in the 2010 and 2012 series with even Barry Zito chipping in last year when he hasn't been able to do anything much before or after for years. You had guys like Sandoval hitting three homers in a single playoff game when he couldn't hit more than 10 the whole season, Scutaro hitting nearly .500 and almost .400 since joining the Giants mid-year (after hitting only .262 at Colorado. Just think about it: No drug testing in the playoffs is like an open invitation especially to slumping and mediocre players: the Giants had at least one minor league coach in their system known to suggest getting such 'help ' through artificial means. Just keep this in mind as you watch the rest of the playoffs.
So, enjoy the off season and look forward to the A's coming back for another exciting season, beating the Giants. PEDs or no. PEDs can only go so far. There has to be SOME talent there in the first place to make them work across the team. It's still a sad situation with drugs in sports, especially baseball, today - the fact that we can't really take the sport seriously. And sign up for those future offers below, follow us on facebook http://facebook.com/bayareacoups and http://twitter.com/bayareacoups
The noted trend, above, continued into the Detroit-Boston series, as well as, perhaps, the St. Louis - Los Angeles NL series with as few as two runs scored for the first time in two games on the same day in playoffs history. Dozens of overpowering strikeouts and a near no-hitter...
Oakland A's Post-Mordem Not Bad - Perhaps More To It Than A's Weakness
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