A's pitcher Brandon McCarthy and his wife, Amanda, are on the cover of the current issue of ESPN The Magazine, which hit newsstands Wednesday. The magazine wanted to talk to McCarthy about how he used analytics to help change his pitching motion, a rather intellectual approach considered uncommon in baseball. Last week, McCarthy was surprised when the publication contacted him for a cover shoot. "I'm still weirded out by it," McCarthy said of the whole experience. "It was originally just a regular article. Somehow it just got bigger and bigger." McCarthy is shown in full uniform on the cover, and Amanda, a former model, is saddled up to him in a revealing outfit. The headline reads: "Chicks dig the ground ball."