Great Gifs BTW, They cant beat the Stros but they've perfected crying. Take your a** whipping like a man.
I remember briefly how confident we were after six innings with a lead with Lidge, Dotel and Wagner. They could not possibly have been as effective as I remember, but I do remember the confidence in victory as a fan.
It's like the Astros decided to break the A's spirit by demoralizing them in different ways each game. In the first game, they have a big comeback win late. 2nd game, they only muster 4 hits, no walks and somehow manage to barely squeak out enough runs to win against the A's who had much more traffic on the bases. What's next for game 3 of the series? Maybe Lance beans the first 3 players to load the bases and then proceeds to no hit them? Yordan manages to bunt a homerun? Tony Kemp retires mid-game and then somehow resigns with the Astros and hits the game winning homerun? Let's make em cry.
The A's have also made their fair share of base-running and defensive errors that have nearly all come back to cost them. Running on any short fly ball to this LF is a risk. Giving the Astros extra outs almost always comes back to haunt the opposition. To think this dominance has all been done without the guy who was their best player in 2019.
We also don't have the top 2 Cy young finishers and Springer. It's crazy how much firepower we have lost and still could win 100 games.
I could be wrong, but didn't we go a whole season without losing a game we were leading in the 7th during that era? I don't think Wags was perfect, but we ended up winning every time he blew a save... which was admittedly rare.
People have really embellished that 2003 season (the only season of Lidge-Dotel-Wagner) as some historic time where that team and bullpen steamrolled the opposition. In the end that team won 87 games… missed the playoffs (although would have been the 2nd wild card team in today’s format). All three guys were great and it made life easier for the 1M in terms of decision making, but it wasn’t enough.
At what point do we stop worrying about the Athletic-Bogeymen and start worrying about the Mariner-Bogeymen?
2024? The Mariners haven’t looked great against the Yankees-Bogeymen. Ohtani-mania may be the only other notable AL West event this year.
Understood and agreed, but was it the Lidge, Dotel, Wagner trio that completed the feat I mentioned? Or was it Dotel, Lidge protecting leads from the 8th inning on perfectly all year? I am almost positive one of those two scenarios played out over a whole season. I get that those teams didn't do anything substantial, other than blow a few first round series to the Braves, but it's cool for us to get nostalgic about our team, right? I don't mean to speak for @Marshall Bryant, but we were just having a little fun trip down memory lane.
Their expected W-L record is 38-49, and there is absolutely nothing impressive abut the current major league team aside from extremely good fortune in one run games. Until they actually pass us I won't believe it. If Oakland doesn't recover we should spend all of September in cruise control.
Nothing wrong with nostalgia... and yes, nostalgia usually does lead to embellishment or exaggeration of feats. That year Wagner did blow a save against the d-backs and they lost.... so there was not a perfect season. The following year was when they let Wagner go and Dotel became the closer. He also blew saves and the they ended up including him as part of the package in the Beltran trade. What Lidge did when he was finally anointed as closer in 2004 was true/utter dominance (no exaggerating). That run, culminating with the team finishing 35-10, sticks out as a far more impressive performance than what Lidge-Dotel-Wagner did.
