Revenge of Moneyball, Series Recap, and Other Notes

A SWEEP! A real, honest to goodness, three-game sweep! A fun come-from-behind win! An even funner walk-off win! And a strong-pitching-performance win! Yay, winning!

And all these wins came with the classic "M" caps. So you know that we'll be seeing more of them. I like the "M" logo and all (even though I still prefer the "TC" logo), but I do worry about unilaterally embracing a throwback item; last year was the old cream uniforms, and we all know how that went. But, as Crash Davis said, "respect the streak," so they may as well go with it for a while.

A couple notes:

• Josh Willingham wants each and every one of us to love him.
• A note to Mr. Revere: Benny, honey, every one already pretty much loves you because you're fast, and scrappy, and smiley and all, but really, you need to work on that bunting thing. Seriously. I know bunting is hard, but dude...
• If I were to give this series a title, it would be "Building Pitchers' Confidence"

~~~
In the movie Moneyball, Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) said something like (I'm paraphrasing here, I don't really remember the quote word for word, and I tried to look it up on IMDb, but I couldn't find it, and I don't feel like putting the DVD in and waiting to hear it again, and it might have really been said by Jonah Hill's completely fictional character, so just go with me here)... "How do you win ballgames? By scoring runs. How do you score runs? By getting on base."

Ha!

So on Tuesday, Cole De Vries allowed a bijillion A's to get on base. Not one of them scored runs. And ultimately, they didn't win the game. So there.

Ok, I know, that game was more of a fluke-fest than a commentary on on-base percentage, but it also demonstrates how truly bad Oakland's offense really is.

I suppose I shouldn't get too gloat-y about the sweep, huh?

~~~
Notes
Jason Marquis signed with the San Diego Padres.

Erik Komatsu cleared waivers has been returned to the Washington Nationals.

Phil Dumatrait, who has spent the season in AAA Rochester, has decided to retire. He's been battling a shoulder injury all year. The Twins released him rather than have him complete retirement papers so he can sign with another team if he changes his mind after a while.