"It's torture... but I'm almost there..." - The Cure

This was just a sad lost and it is almost as if the A's relive the same bad games over and over and over again, as the one had all of the classic elements: a close-pitched game followed by Zito pitching longer then he should, a blown save, extra-innings, and a bobble that leads to the losing run.

Macha was lucky that he failed to have a reliever up in the seventh as Zito was starting to close in on 94 pitches, the turn-key pitch where success or failure is derived. As seen in the updated Zito Pitch Frequency chart, Zito was having a tough time going through the 7th inning and he made it out with just the homer given up to Sexson. In that inning, he had made 25 pitches, 10 of which were Balls and 1 HBP. (Side Note: Using today's start as a guide, I will be re-formating the chart to contain the classification each pitch thrown is as well as the end result of a pitch)

But the real failure came when Macha left Calero in to start the ninth and after Calero ran into trouble, he called on for Rincon, not his current closer. If Macha did not want to use Duchscherer, he should have realized that if the game would require the Duke, it would be far less stressful for him to start the inning then to come in to fix a reliever's mess.

But hold on, there's more abominations; Crosby deserves kudos for his bobble of a potential double-play ball in the 12th. It's a good thing that Glynn did not flail his arms at Crosby, otherwise he would have been on the plane back to Sacramento quicker then this game was lost.

It's games like this that you wonder why hasn't Beane fired Macha. Oh that's right, Macha's his puppet...

Either Beane should:

• have better dialogue with Macha


• become the manager


• create a Disney animatronic robot to tele-conference


• or put the damn ego aside and hire Bobby Valentine

I am simply tired of the status-quo.