[Editor’s note: from the professionalism on display here, one can easily tell I didn’t write this. Thanks, ububba.]

ATL @ ATH: Limping into Sactown

By ububba

If it’s not dispiriting enough to get swept three straight at home by a last-place AL team, imagine having to fly cross-country to face another one… but this time, it’s in a minor-league ballpark. Such is the plight of our deeply disappointing 2025 Atlanta Braves. As an old subwoofer ad once proclaimed: “We’ve reached new lows!”

If the steam didn’t seem to fully leak out of this 39-50 club after the latest round of injury news, it certainly has after going 2-9 following the 5-game winning streak vs. the hated Mets. Our late Chip Caray might say, “This season has been about as much fun as writing an alimony check.”

Newsflash: This team doesn’t hit & it has a unique talent for losing close games.

In the NL, the Bravos are 11th in OPS (.698) & 13th in runs scored (357). And, as much as I hate to quote Morrissey (alt-rock’s greatest comedian), stop me, oh-oho, stop me, stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before… but the Braves are 11-22 in games decided by one run. For that category, it’s currently the most losses in all of MLB. (Now cue The Smiths’ “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.”)

The Pitching & More: At 3.77, the Braves are 7th in the NL in team ERA. Of course, moving forward without the top of our rotation doesn’t inspire a lotta confidence either. But… we gotta play the remaining 73 games and who the hell knows what’ll happen? Can we go, say, 43-30 & crawl back above .500? Having seen this bunch, I’ll not hazard a guess – and I’ll damn-sure not make any bets.

But hey, it’s baseball and, as a night owl, I may be one of the few to have these West Coast tilts tuned in, and maybe we’ll get something interesting along the way vs. this wayward bunch of Athletics.

That said, this bunch isn’t exactly the Swingin’ A’s of the early-mid ’70s. No, they’re a 37-54 club, a young team “finding its way,” while taking some serious lumps at the same time. Believe it or not, the beginning of the ’25 season offered some promise, as the A’s stood at 22-20 after an 11-1 pasting of the Dodgers on May 13. Then the club went on an 11-game losing skid. After breaking the streak with a 5-4 home win over the Phils, they promptly lost another nine in a row. Since that three-week meltdown, they’re 14-15.

What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been: And I really hate to quote the Grateful Dead, but it certainly does apply to this NoCal franchise. Moving to the East Bay from Kansas City in 1968, the Athletics have enjoyed some genuine glory – four World Series titles, six AL pennants, 17 division titles, iconic players/managers/owners, even a hit Hollywood film.

But the last few years in Oakland were far from pretty, both on and off the field. To many, owner John J. Fisher seems to be an even more cynical reincarnation of cheapskate Charley Finley – minus the titles. I recall catching a game at their concrete mausoleum of a ballpark two years ago & it felt like I was witnessing a small rebellion in the right-field bleachers. Only 8,809 fans were there for a Sunday afternoon game vs. the world champion Astros, but the hardcore fans (bless them) brought about a dozen homemade signs criticizing ownership (“Weasels!”) and its proposed move (“Vegas Beware!”). As I said at the time, guess they’ll go down swinging – and bully for them.

Having finally said goodbye to Oakland in 2024 & awaiting the move to Las Vegas in 2028, the A’s are playing the next few years in West Sacramento, Calif., at Sutter Health Park – home of the SF Giants’ Triple-A affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats. (Capacity 14,014, including fixed seats, lawn & standing room.) The club has dropped any city title until it moves to Sin City, so they’re just the Athletics now. It looks weird in the AL West standings because, well, it’s been an awfully weird situation.

Sin City: I recently made a trip to Las Vegas and all the talk was about the recent groundbreaking of a new $1.3 billion ballpark (just off the strip on the site of the old Tropicana property):

Oakland Athletics Las Vegas MLB ballpark renderings released | Athletics | Sports

FWIW, I’m certainly no architect, but I don’t understand how you can build an MLB ballpark out there without a retractable roof. For starters, it would mean that you can almost never schedule day games. In Vegas, hitting 110-degrees on a summer day is not even news. Yeah, it’s dry, but the difference between standing in the sun and standing in the shade is about 20 degrees. (Hope that park has plenty of shade ‘til the sun goes down.)

I remember working a Vegas mid-day pool party (a magazine-related music event) and watching my order of sushi shrivel in the blazing sun like a dying insect about 90 seconds after it arrived. (Um, lesson learned.) And I’ve done evening events at the same rooftop nightclubs where it was 90+ degrees at 1 a.m. The heat is no joke.

All that said, in the end, Vegas may be the right move. Despite all efforts, the situation in Oakland had run its course and, by now, Vegas has proven itself as a professional-sports town. Good luck, folks.

The 2025 A’s: They’re actually a decent offensive club. In the AL, they’re 5th in HRs (112), 7th in OPS (.729) & 8th in runs (382). The green guys with the most pop are:

  • SS Jacob Wilson (.333/.374/.468 w/ 9 HRs)
  • DH Brent Rooker (.273/.348/.480 w/ 18 HRs)
  • 1B Nick Kurtz (.246/.312/.508) w/ 13 HRs)
  • RF Lawrence Butler (.256/.324/.435 w/ 11 HRs)
  • LF Tyler Soderstrom (.250/.332/.423 w/ 14 HRs)

And for those still keeping score on our 2022 Matt Olson trade with the then-Oakland club, catcher Shea Langeliers’ numbers are .243/.305/.459 w/ 12 HRs. The other trade pieces – pitcher Joey Estes (4.73 ERA in Vegas), OF Cristian Pache (.644 OPS in Reno) & pitcher Ryan Cusick (7.45 ERA for four teams) – are all toiling in the minor leagues.

Pitching? Well… they’re dead-last in the AL with a 5.32 ERA, which includes a 5.75 mark from its rather flammable bullpen. And for further context on team ERA, they’re 2nd to last in all of MLB (to Colorado’s ghastly 5.51).

Looking at this series, it appears that we do get the “best” of their rotation and you could argue that they have the advantage in the first two games:

  • Jeffrey Springs (6-6, 4.07 ERA) vs. Didier Fuentes (0-2, 9.00 ERA)
  • Mitch Spence (2-4, 4.06 ERA) vs. Bryce Elder (2-6, 5.92 ERA)
  • J.P. Sears (7-7, 4.76 ERA) vs. Spencer Strider (3-7, 3.93)

Here’s to scoring some runs in Cali’s state capital & getting a much-needed series win. Of course, given the relative stakes of this series, I’ll let Morrissey chime in again with the closer: “What Difference Does It Make?”

(Official Music Video)Preview YouTube video Grateful Dead – Truckin’ (Tivoli Concert Hall 4/17/72) | Meet Up At The Movies 2022