…in the offseason the Yankees raided them in free agency to get their best player, Jason Giambi, while the Boston Red Sox stepped in and helped themselves to centerfielder Johnny Damon. It was Oakland’s attempt to replace these players on a shoestring budget, and the innovative methods applied by GM Billy Beane that provided the basis for the movie Moneyball.
The AL West might have the Los Angeles Angels throwing the big money at free agents and they might have a financial power and recent two-time pennant winner in the Texas Rangers. But the division’s reigning champion is the Moneyball Boys. The Oakland A’s have won the AL West in both 2012 and 2013. Is Goliath ready to slay the well-heeled
The Oakland A’s, like the Baltimore Orioles, keep hanging around the wild-card race and won’t go away. The A’s come into Tuesday nights’ games with a record of 65-56, just a half-game back of Baltimore for the second wild-card berth and a game ahead of Detroit. Oakland is plus-three on its well-heeled divisional rival in Los Angeles. While the A’s are similar to the Orioles in that they continue to defy a disbelieving public, they are different in one notable regarding. While Baltimore’s success is somewhat of a mystery until you look at their bullpen, everyone knows why Oakland is winning—great pitching, from the starting rotation to the back end. The questions about the offense are twofold—is it good enough to make the playoffs? And more pertinent, who the hell do they have in their lineup anyway? TheSportsNotebook will answer the latter question and take a crack at the former…
The Detroit Tigers and Texas Rangers are each on a stretch of playing decent baseball, as last year’s ALCS teams look to again make it to October and go deep. The Tigers split four with the Yankees earlier in the week. I suppose that can be considered modestly disappointing, as they won the first two at home and hit C.C. Sabathia hard in the third game before losing 12-8. But a split with one of the league’s best teams is never a bad thing and it fits into an overall stretch of consistency for Jim Leyland’s team. Texas, after losing the first two games of their series with the Angels early last week, responded by winning the next two and salvaging a split and then taking two of three from Kansas City and Boston.
The Oakland A’s and Los Angeles Angels are barely hanging on in the AL West race, trailing Texas by 5.5 and 6 games respectively. But the A’s lead the wild-card race and the Angels are just a game out of the playoffs as they begin a crucial three-game series in NoCal tonight. The series’ loser […]
Moneyball has been a huge success. The movie, that is.
On second thought, the movie’s performance actually mirrored its on-field counterpart fairly closely, if you consider that it smartly exceeded expectations, charmed fans, and yet still didn’t win anything of consequence.