Outside The Confines: Take a seat, any seat

Well, if you want a primo seat to an Oakland A’s game this season, you should have much trouble. The club is having trouble clearing 3,000 fans a game, and it’s no wonder when you consider the announcement of their future relocation, and their current trajectory to possibly be the worst team in baseball history this season (more on that below). It’s hard to blame fans for not wanting to come out.

Meanwhile enough fans came out in New York to boo Justin Verlander during his Citi Field debut. Leave it to New York baseball fans to make it exceedingly clear when they aren’t pleased with their club. And on that note, the OTHER team in New York was already trying to fend off cheating rumors even before one of their starting pitchers was ejected for having a sticky substance on his hands.

All that and more in today’s OTC.

Now on to today’s links!

• Leo Morgenstern addresses the collapsing performance of Alek Manoah.
• Brian Murphy looks at 9 hitters who are red-hot after a slow start to the season.
• Tom Verducci believes this is the year for Ronald Acuna Jr. to truly shine.
• Veteran pitcher Anibal Sanchez has announced his retirement. (ESPN)
• Rustin Dodd and Jayson Jenks offer a warm memorial of Jose Lima who passed away in 2010. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Yikes...

• Speaking of the dismal A’s, Dan Gartland looks at how they’re reaching new lows in terms of attendance as well.
• David Brandt looks at how the new minor league CBA is going to phase out host families.
• Thomas Harrigan offers some early contenders for this year’s Cy Young winners.
• ESPN has a cool feature up on the complicated issues at the core of restoring Hinchliffe Stadium.
• Brittany Ghiroli looks at exactly why Shohei Ohtani is going to break records in free agency. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Well, this isn’t great.

• Bryan Hoch has more details on the Domingo German ejection.
• First a glance from Judge, now the ejection, Keegan Matheson looks at the high tension between the Yankees and the Jays this series.
• But you better not imply the Yankees are cheating because Judge will have none of that. Story by Karl Rasmussen.
• Dan Szymborski looks at how Juan Soto is finally coming around for the Padres.
• Justin Verlander responded to getting booed at his Citi Field debut. Story by Joon Lee.
• How would you change this list?

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Make it so.