Swept in Oakland

With the Red Sox in town for the second time this year, I bought tickets to go to two of the three games in Oakland.

Regrettably, neither game was very good. I blame the pitching. And the hitting. And the defense. Basically, the Sox just sucked.

Tuesday I went with Debbi, Subrata and his girlfriend Susan, and my old friend Rob. The Sox started Bret Saberhagen, noted hospital case, coming off one okay start and one bad start, and an awful lot of time on the disabled list. The A's started one of their awesome young rotation, Mark Mulder. The Sox further hamstrung themselves by playing Shea "what's a walk?" Hillenbrand at third, and resting shortstop Nomar Garciaparra in favor of Mike Lansing, who is not renowned for his offense.

Ironically, Lansing and right fielder Trot Nixon did most of the Sox' offensive damage this evening, as the Sox scored a whole two runs off Mulder, who threw only 90 pitches in 7+ innings. Meanwhile, Saberhagen happily melted down, giving up three runs and 7 hits in 4 innings, and though Rod Beck later gave up another two runs (and uncorked two wild pitches), it didn't really matter. Catcher Scott Hatteberg dropped the ball twice when Johnny Damon stole second, and Hillenbrand bobbled a bunt which Damon parlayed into a single. In the end, Oakland won, 5-2.

Wednesday, Debbi and I were joined by Ceej and David. We were initially psyched that the Sox would be throwing their #2 starter, Tim Wakefield, against the A's ace, Tim Hudson, but were crushed to learn that the Sox had activated noted non-ace Frank Castillo from the disabled list and pushed Wakefield's start back a day. On the plus side, Nomar started the game.

Also on the plus side, traffic was light, and we got there early enough to take in some batting practice:

On the minus side, Nomar looked awful at the plate, striking out twice, and the Sox just couldn't put together a rally in one inning, according only one run despite getting 9 hits. Hudson claimed not to have his best stuff, but he dominated the game from start to finish. Meanwhile, Castillo got rocked as expected, and wasn't helped by errors by Nixon and Carl Everett's (Everett's was especially brutal, as he missed picking up a ball in the outfield), and Oakland won again 6-1.

I didn't go to today's game, which Wakefield started opposite another young ace-in-the-making, Barry Zito. Turns out Zito threw a complete-game, 4-hit shutout, the Sox committed two more errors, and Boston lost again, 6-0.

Having been swept, Oakland has now passed the Sox for the AL Wild Card lead. Moreover, Saberhagen hit the DL again with shoulder problems, and says he'll retire at the end of the year. It's just been a bad week for the Sox, despite sweeping Texas over the weekend.

Was there anything good about the games?

Well, aside from the dubious potential of having perhaps seen Bret Saberhagen's last Major League game, I was impressed with the turnout of A's fans for the series. The stadium sold out on Wednesday (apparently the seats on "Mount Davis" aren't counted as seats the A's try to sell, so if they sell out everything else, then they claim they sold out). The cinnamon apple pretzels were yummy, and the Round Table pizzas were better than usual.

I also had a lot of fun talking to Rob on Tuesday, and CJ and David on Wednesday, and Debbi also had fun, although she was feeling under the weather on Wednesday with an earache.

Things I saw that I hadn't seen before? A man reach base due to a bobbled attempt to field a bunt on Tuesday, and - get this - an automatic double when Johnny Damon hit a ball down the right-field line, and the ball got lodged in a paper cup which had flown onto the field! That's something I'll probably never see again. The umpires correctly awarded Damon second base rather than a home run, just as if the ball had gotten lodged under a bench or in a fence. Bizarre!

Also, AA-prospect Casey Fossum, who was called up a week or so ago, acquitted himself well in relief of Castillo, allowing 3 hits and 1 run (and 1 inherited runner to score). Considering he's the rawest of rookies, that's something to be proud of, against a power-hitting team like the A's. He struck out the side in the 8th.

You can also read CJ's account of Wednesday's game.

Anyway, it was a glum couple of days at the park. Watching your team as the visiting team is always a rough thing, and it makes losing feel even more bitter. Still, I haven't seen the Sox lose since 1999, so it's not like I've had cause to complain for quite a while.

Still, I'll close with this: If the Sox don't start playing considerably better, they're not going to go anywhere this year, even if Pedro comes off the DL.

Other news? I read a book on XML yesterday while waiting for an install to finish. Everyone waxes poetic about XML and how big a thing it is, but reading the book it seems like there's nothing special here. It's like HTML, only generalized. It's a data representation format. Useful, but I always feel like truly cool technologies should be something that takes me more than half an hour to grasp.

I got a mortgage prequalification report from the broker I've been e-mailing. It sounds like I can afford about as much house as I'd expected to, and maybe even a little more. We'll see if my grasp of the housing market is as sound! Meanwhile, I have to get some documents together and meet with him to start the preapproval process. But, so far so good!