ALDS Notes - OAK vs. MIN Game 1

Pitching
Both Zito & Santana looked great yesterday. Zito took advantage of Twins hitters' aggressiveness at the plate & on the bases with balls outside the strike zone & varying deliveries. Zito threw mostly curves & change-ups with high fastballs as baits for hitters to swing outside the zone. Minnesota had to adjust to look for hitting the off-speed's instead of fastballs because of that. His curves & especially change-ups had a lot of movements and were strikes consistently. That was a tough problem for the home team offense in Game 1.

Santana was in the the usual Cy Young form, but made a few mistakes, particular when facing Frank Thomas. Johan missed few change-ups over the middle of the plate that were easier to hit if hitters had expected them after a fastball. Overall, he pitched a good game, just didn't get the run support he needed to win. You have to give credit to him for picking his team up. After SS Barlett made an error to miss a potential double-play to load 1st & 2nd base with no outs on the top of the 7th inning, Santana managed to get out of the inning without giving up a run. That's a team player and big-time leader on display right there. Barlett is in his 2nd season at the Major League SS position and playing his first postseason. Santana showed his cool and maturity by telling him it's ok and got out of the jam on his own. This is an positive implication of a true winner Santana is as a teammate and player.


Hitting
Frank Thomas proved again that he's still got the bat that will hurt you. He knew and expected the pitches from Santana and punished the mistakes made by the pitcher. Cap off to Big Hurt. He's the dangerous hitter that he's always been and he is the catalyst and offense factor for the A's.

Game-Changing Point
Twins trailed the entire game, and their biggest chance of getting back into the game came in the bottom of the 8th. After Santana getting his team out of trouble in the 7th with no outs and runners on 1st & 2nd, White hit a HR to put one on the scoreboard at the bottom of the half. 2:1, OAK, going into the 8th.

MIN started off the 8th inning with a double from Barlett. Lead-off hitter Castillo was at the plate and being down by one run and middle of the line-up coming up, a bunt seemed like a logical decision. Yes, Castillo tried to bunt to the right side with Zito's curve on the first pitch. He missed, and Barlett took off after the pitch delivery and was dancing between 2nd and 3rd base. A's catcher, Kendall alertly threw to 2nd base and Barlett stumbled his way back to 2nd base to avoid the pick-off. Luckily, the throw was off, otherwise, Barlett would have been out crawling back to the base. He didn't look like a good base-runner out there. He must have took off early before the intended bunt was executed.

The next pitch, Castillo didn't try to bunt again and swung the ball foul grounding to right. Zito threw two off-speed's to the hitter thus far. With the way the movements on his pitches, it was difficult to put down a good bunt. That could have been the reason why MIN took off the bunt and let Castillo to try to hit to the right side instead. Castillo instead grounded out to third and Barlett couldn't move to third with one out. Barlett stopped in-between 2nd & 3rd when the next batter, Punto grounded out to the 2nd baseman. That was just not a smart base running move. Barlett was looking at the 3rd base coach, maybe he thought that the 2nd baseman was throwing to 3rd for a tag. However, his instinct seemed rather inexperienced and didn't anticipate the correct running play. When there's 1 out and a ball hitting to the right side, defense isn't likely to throw the ball to 3rd for a tag to avoid an error and letting the runner on 2nd score. Defense would most likely opt to get the sure-out at 1st base to get the 2nd out and leave the runner moving to 3rd. Barlett should have easily taken off to 3rd base when seeing the ground ball going to the right side of the infield and turn around the base to see if the ball was thrown away to potentially score on the ground ball.

Twins ended up not scoring any runs in that 8th inning after a slashing line-out by Mauer to left. However, it's the decision and execution of the team that might have caused a chance to tie the ball game.

Castillo should have tried to bunt again on 0-1 count, after missing the first bunt attempt. It wouldn't have been easy to lay a good bunt to the right side with Zito's curve, though. The OAK 3rd baseman was playing "stay" on the first bunt attempt and the shortstop was holding the runner on 2nd. If Castillo could have laid a bunt down 3rd baseline, it'd have been a nice play, too, forcing the pitcher to field the pitch and give the runner on 2nd a chance to run down to 3rd. MIN opted to have Castillo hitting to the right side, though, on the 2nd pitch. If he had grounded the ball fair and been out, the runner on 2nd would still have made it to 3rd safely.

This particular situation was the game-turning point. Twins came up short and failed to deliver, and lost the game.