The Jim Johnson Effect

During the off season, the Oakland Athletics parted ways with their fan favorite closer, Grant Balfour. With the closer role needing to be filled, the A’s made a trade with the Baltimore Orioles, sending Jemile Weeks and a player to be named later (David Freitas) for Jim Johnson. Johnson’s numbers with the Orioles over the last two seasons, including 101 saves in 113 chances, gave the A’s what many called, the best bullpen in baseball.

Flash forward to March 31, Opening Night. In the top of the 9th inning of a 0-0 game, Bob Melvin called upon Johnson to make his Oakland debut. To say it didn’t go well would be a large understatement.  In one third of an inning, Johnson allowed two runs on two hits and a walk before being pulled.  Unbeknownst to everybody, it was a sign of things to come.

After several rough outings, the fans began to turn on Johnson and he was removed from the closer role. The boo birds were in full effect when he would come into games, causing a brief rift between the players and the fan base. Johnson’s appearances started to because few and far between as his bad luck continued. The tipping point came on July 23, when the A’s were facing the Astros at home. With a comfortable 9-2 lead, Johnson made what would be his last appearance in an A’s uniform. By the time the inning finally ended, it was 9-7, with Johnson allowing four runs on four hits, all without recording an out. The next day, he was DFAed.

August 6th, the A’s post season enemy, the Detroit Tigers, picked up Johnson. The Tigers weakness has been their bullpen for the last few years, so they’ve been picking up more bullpen arms with trades. Johnson made his Tigers debut Sunday, and lucky me got to watch the game on my flight back from Atlanta and was holing back laughter. The one thing that annoyed me was the comment made by the announcers, that Johnson chose to stay in Triple-A to work out some issues. Had he done that with Oakland, he might still be with the team. Might. However, watching Johnson pitch, it appears that he still needs to work things out. Some of us in Oakland made the comment that he was unlucky, plays weren’t being made that should be and everything was finding the holes. Sunday, his bad luck continued. There was a play at first that Victor Martinez botched, but Johnson was able to recover and get the out, however, a run still scored. The next batter popped up to shallow left, with the left fielder and shortstop running for it, Rajai Davis called for it, only to have the ball hit off his glove. Another run scored. Johnson had gotten two outs while allowing two runs, one earned, to score, and leaving two men on bases.

I don’t wish bad things upon him, I really don’t. I never booed him while he was here, nor did I support the booing. It was hard to watch. It was hard to watch him pitch like he was waiting for something bad to happen. It was hard to watch the fans turn on him. It was hard to watch us lose games we should have won because he couldn’t close games out. And it was hard to watch this pitcher who had been so good the last two seasons completely fall apart. That said, if we were to face the Tigers yet again in the post season this year, granted either team makes it to that point, I’d love to see the boys take their former teammate deep. Repeatedly.

Ghosts

The hallowed grounds of old ballparks are filled with the ghosts of baseball’s past.  The stands in Oakland are filled with a different kind of ghost.  The booing kind.

I debated with myself repeatedly the last few days on whether or not to actually write this, but it needs to be said.  Then I’m done with it, never to be discussed again.

Jim Johnson has struggled at home.  That might be a giant understatement, but I was there for his first save at home, so I can’t say he’s wasn’t always bad at home.  Johnson was thrown into a horrible situation.  The fans in Oakland had fallen in love with Grant Balfour and were all sad to see him depart after the 2013 season.  Coming in and replacing a fan favorite is never an easy task, but Johnson was thrown into the situation.  The fans in Oakland, myself included, have always welcomed players with open arms.  Sure, we might think a player is overpaid, but have always been optimistic.  Or so I thought.

March 31st, Opening Night, did not go well for Jim Johnson.  Faced with a 0-0 tie in the 9th inning, Johnson came in and gave up two runs while recording just one out.  As he walked off the mound he was greeted by an unfamiliar sound at Oakland A’s games, boos.  I was taken back, as I’m sure most people were.  That’s not what we do in Oakland.

As Johnson continued to struggle at home, the boos continued to come and seemed to grow.  I watched his home/road splits vary greatly (Home: 11 games 14.04 ERA with 13 runs allowed, Road:11 games 1.98 ERA with 3 runs allowed) and realized that the fans are part of the problem.  My boyfriend has a weekly radio show talking about the A’s and Memorial Day weekend, Johnson was the topic of discussion.  While listening from my hotel in Chicago, I text him that it was the fans causing his problem.  Here was my logic: on the road, there is nobody booing him, where as at home, it’s just a matter of time before some of the fans start booing him.  I said it most likely gets into his head and causes him to not make his pitches and makes him less effective.

Skip ahead to Thursday’s day game against the Tigers.  The A’s were down 3-2 going into the 7th inning.  Enter Johnson.  In his one inning pitched, he allowed 2 runs, giving the Tigers a 5-2 lead.  The A’s rallied in the 9th to score 2 runs, only to lose 5-4.  Fans jumped on Johnson as he walked back to the dugout after his inning ended and was greeted to fans booing and flipping him off.

I love Twitter and I hate Twitter.  You can say whatever you want, which is great, until some people take it too far.  Everybody I follow is against the booing, as am I.  I get it, you paid money to see the team play, so you should be able to do whatever you want.  By all means, but if you screwed up at your job, would you want somebody booing and flipping you off?  I’m guessing the answer is no.

The players have now come after the fans.  I get where they are coming from, I do, but it’s not the best answer.  The fans booing and the fans not booing (and trying to stop the booing) are all being grouped together.  We had Sean Doolittle, a fan favorite, going after fans on Twitter Thursday night, which upset a lot of fans.  Hoping that the issue was finally put to rest, the A’s beat writer felt the need to bring it back up on Friday to Josh Donaldson, another fan favorite, who made a comment that I took as a slap in the face.  They players have made it perfectly clear that they are annoyed with the fans for booing.  Here’s the thing.  You know how the coliseum can have 15,000 people and still sound like it’s a sellout? Yeah, it works the same with the booing.  There might only be a few people booing, but because of our lovely acoustics, sounds like the whole place is.

My other issue is that nobody said anything when the fans were booing Daric Barton.  Sure, Barton has greatly overstayed his welcome in Oakland, but still.  I should mention that I am a Daric Barton fan, so I think he’d be best if he could find another team and start over again, but that’s not going to happen.  However, what makes it ok to boo one player and not another?  Because Barton has had multiple chances to prove his worth and Johnson has not.  Or maybe it’s because Barton is now in Sacramento and Johnson has now been singled out for the fans boos.  Johnson has a proven track record of being a solid pitcher, while Barton, well, he does not.  However, if you are going to attack the fans to stand up for your teammate, it’s best to stick up for all of your teammates, not just one.

Friday was filed with #BooGate comments filing my Twitter feed, and bad vibes.  Texting with Wes (@rfwes) I mentioned we needed to find a way to turn this around and make a joke out of it.  I said I was going to make sign with a picture of a ghost that said “I’m just here for the boos.”  Pictures of cartoon ghosts quickly took off as he ran with the idea.  In fact, if you find him on twitter, he is currently ‘Casper’ and a few others we know have followed suit.  As an A’s fan that’s anti-booing, I’m hoping the fans start showing Johnson some support when he pitches at home.  It’s amazing what a little moral support can do.  Hopefully he can turn his season around and be the pitcher we were all raving about this off-season.

RIP #BooGate.  Can we save the boos for Halloween?

April 6, 2014: Jim Johnson earns his first save as an Oakland Athletic