The Walka Flockas

All over the fucking planet.

Dirk Hayhurst had a whole lot to say about Ricky last night while he was Zauning with Jamie Campbell, and if you missed that, Dirk and Sam prattled on about it again today on Baseball Central, where Dirk stopped just short of saying that watching Ricky is fucking embarrassing or something like that.  You can listen here, but let me warn you: they call up Tabler to chime in at the 15-minute mark or so.

If you missed it, Romero walked 8 and struck out none.  He issued two bases loaded walks, for crying out loud.  It's a good job that Morrow is coming back, because Ricky needs one of those phantom arm fatigue things for a DL stint.

Obviously Romero's all-walk, no-strikeout strategy was a big part of the problem last night, but the defense wasn't really helping him out a whole lot.  Cooper dicked him around on a little squibber to first, and Rajai Davis seemed to boot around every other ball that came his way.

And now we turn to Aaron Laffey, who is uhhh...  worse?  It was nice when Laffey was pitching okay, but over the last month, he's had his ERA baloon by more than 2 runs.  This, of course, is something that shouldn't be that surprising, since he was outperforming his FIP and xFIP significantly up until the last 5 starts or so.

Oh yeah, and Lawrie is shut down for a week, and might not come back again this season.  So yeah.  You can tell why I haven't been writing every single day lately.

Stuff
Yunel Escobar has left the team after being placed on the paternity list.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that means that he's going to be a dad.  Chad Beck has been called up to take his roster spot.

Fartolo Colon has been suspended for failing a PED test.  Shocker.  At least the A's just got Brandon McCarthy and Brett Anderson back.

Fangraphs wrote something about Romero.  I didn't read it, because I have a decent idea of what the subject matter will be.  Be afraid.

Billy Hamilton stole his millionth base last night in AA, breaking Vince Coleman's 30 year old record.

Lineups
Jays
Davis LF
Rasmus CF
EE DH
Cooper 1B
Sierra RF
Torrealba C
Johnson 2B
McCoy SS
Hech 3B

Laffey P

Tylers
Jackson CF
Infante 2B
Cabrera 3B
Fielder 1B
Peralta SS
Young dh
Dirks LF
Baker RF
Avila C

Sanchez P