{"id":7073,"date":"2014-04-03T09:06:08","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T13:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/?p=7073"},"modified":"2014-04-03T09:06:08","modified_gmt":"2014-04-03T13:06:08","slug":"as-manager-behind-jim-johnson-as-closer-after-another-ugly-outing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/2014\/04\/03\/as-manager-behind-jim-johnson-as-closer-after-another-ugly-outing\/","title":{"rendered":"A&#8217;s manager behind Jim Johnson as closer after another ugly outing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2014\/04\/jimjohnson.jpg\" alt=\"jimjohnson\" width=\"594\" height=\"401\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7074\" srcset=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2014\/04\/jimjohnson.jpg 594w, http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2014\/04\/jimjohnson-300x202.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\" \/><br \/>\nJim Johnson was supposed to give the Oakland Athletics a veteran presence at the back end of their bullpen. Instead he has pitched poorly blowing a save, taking two losses and posting a 45.00 ERA though his first two outings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose guys are playing their butts off and we should be 3-0,\u201d Johnson said of hits teammates, via <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.sfgate.com\/athletics\/2014\/04\/02\/10250\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ll take the blame for that. But if I sulk and pout, it doesn\u2019t do anyone any good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Manager Bob Melvin was quick to point out what Johnson is doing right after the Athletics dropped Tuesday&#8217;s game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe velocity is there, the movement is there,\u201d Melvin said. \u201cAt times, they laid off some tough pitches.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Johnson has saved 101 games over he past two seasons. That will give him some leash but only enough if he is able to turn things around quickly. While he saved 50 games last season in Baltimore he also blew nine save chances and took eight losses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jim Johnson was supposed to give the Oakland Athletics a veteran presence at the back end of their bullpen. Instead he has pitched poorly blowing a save, taking two losses and posting a 45.00 ERA though his first two outings. \u201cThose guys are playing their butts off and we should be 3-0,\u201d Johnson said of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[499],"tags":[503,447,501,272],"coauthors":[6],"class_list":{"0":"post-7073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-front","9":"tag-jim-johnson","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-oakland-athletics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7075,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7073\/revisions\/7075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7073"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}