Beaneball

The A's began an important series last night with a win over Anaheim, taking the 5-4 decision. They've got two more games against the Angels, who they now lead by a game and a half in the West, before they start another three game series against the Giants. The first line in this game recap mentions Bobby Crosby's viability as a rookie of the year candidate, a point that, you'll remember, I addressed in an earlier entry. He did help his cause last night, though, with a pair of hits in four times up, including his 19th double of the year. I determined that Crosby was actually the third best rookie in the league by looking at VORP, but voters obviously don't vote on the basis of VORP. How, then, does Crosby stack up in the traditional numbers? ESPN.com has a neat "rookies only" stat-sorting feature, making this much easier than it might be. The first thing to note is that in all of baseball, only six rookie hitters have played consistently enough to meet the "qualified for a batting title" requirement of having 3.1 plate appearances per team game. Those six, for the curious, are Lew Ford, Matt Holliday, Khalil Greene, Kaz Matsui, and two A's: Marco Scutaro and Crosby. That's a lot of middle infielders. Looking at the full list points out an apparent mistake: Victor Martinez appears not to be a rookie. That pushes Crosby up to second, before we even begin this exercise. Crosby is behind Ford in runs, hits, RBI, steals, walks, batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging, but leads in doubles and homers. While Crosby's position should help him, Ford's .320 batting average is a gaudy number, so at this point, I think Ford has to be considered both the correct choice as well as the likely choice for the hardware. Back to the game, though. Overall, it looks like it was a solid win: Oakland had a three-run inning and a two-run inning, with the two runs coming against the vaunted Anaheim bullpen, this time represented by Brendan Donnelly and Francisco Rodriguez; Mark Mulder didn't pitch great, allowing four runs, but he had a 9-3 G/F ratio and got eight strikeouts in his seven innings; the bullpen went six-up-six-down, with Justin Lehr pitching the eighth and Octavio Dotel earning his first Oakland save in the ninth; and only Marco Scutaro didn't reach base at least once. My only quibbles are the usual ones: fifteen base runners were converted into just five runs, in no small part due to a lack of power: the A's ten hits were made up of seven singles and three doubles. The A's sort of had to win this game, as much as any game in June is a "must-win," because of the pitching matchups for the next two, or more accurately, who is pitching for the A's. Barry Zito goes tonight, and while any game could be the one in which he regains his touch, it's more likely that he'll continue to struggle and give up four or five runs in six innings while John Lackey shuts down the A's on the other side. Then, on Thursday, it's been announced that Rich Harden will miss his start. He apparently hasn't been DL'd yet, but I'm not sure who will go for the A's. Whether it's Justin Duchscherer or Kirk Saarloos or the A's pull some kind of surprise, though, the pitcher will probably be a fairly large drop-off from Harden.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 10:51 | |

Oakland beat the Giants yesterday, 8-7 in 10 innings, evening the series at 1-1, but they paid a price for it. First, Octavio Dotel appears to have caught the Oakland bullpen disease, since he allowed four runs in the ninth inning to blow his first American League save opportunity. He vultured the win, though, by pitching a scoreless tenth, then celebrating as Marco Scutaro brought Bobby Kielty home with the winning run in the bottom half of the inning. Second, Rich Harden hurt himself in the game, separating his non-pitching shoulder (the same shoulder he's had trouble with in the past) on a defensive play at first base. Scott Hatteberg apparently made a bad throw that caused the whole thing, so I'm sure he feels terrible. I won't pile on him, as I'm sure other bloggers are. More to the point, it's unknown what the effect of the injury will be, how much time Harden will miss (if any), and so on. Finally, Tim Hudson was placed on the DL yesterday, meaning no one had to be sent down for Octavio Dotel to join the team. Hudson has a strained stomach (boy, do I know how that one feels) muscle of some kind, and should apparently miss two starts. He claims he could pitch through it if he has to, but the A's would rather have him miss a little time and get himself to 100% health rather than pitch ineffectively and risk hurting himself further. This is pretty awful timing, considering that the A's just traded Mike Wood to Kansas City, who could have come up and probably done a decent job for a few starts. On the other hand, Justin Duchscherer is already in the majors and doing good work in the bullpen (though not nearly as excellent as he started the year), and he's a very recent convert to the pen, so it's not as if he's forgotten how to start. Meanwhile, if Harden has to miss any time, Kirk Saarloos is still waiting in Sacramento. All of this is assuming the A's don't want to call up Joe Blanton until it's time to call him up permanently, which makes sense: why start his free-agency clock earlier than they have to? The A's had a pretty good day offensively, pounding out fifteen hits for their eight runs, including four doubles and a homer, with only Eric Byrnes among the starters not earning his way on base at least once. Bobby Crosby seems to be "hot" again, with two of the four Oakland doubles being his (he also added a single). By RARP and VORP, Crosby has been the sixth most valuable shortstop in baseball so far; the A's have to be pretty happy with that performance for their $300,000. Among rookies (or guys who I assume are rookies based on their AB totals), only Victor Martinez and Lew Ford rank ahead of Crosby in VORP so far. Unfortunately, both of those guys are in the AL, and Ford has received good press for his outstanding play after the Twins's injury situations, so I don't know if Crosby can be considered a front-runner for hardware at this point.

Posted by jason in Oakland A's at 12:55 | |

For the first time in recent memory, the A's appear to be having some clubhouse issues. There were two team meetings yesterday, one with Ken Macha and one without, to try to clear up this thing about the starters vs. the bullpen. I think they should just play some paintball to see who the bigger man is. That's what's at stake, after all, isn't it? That's the conclusion I come to after reading Arthur Rhodes's comments yesterday. Anyway, the A's played a game yesterday, and finally won. It was a nice solid victory, too, as Mark Redman went a strong seven and a third innings, giving up just a third inning run, and Chad Bradford and Jim Mecir closed the win out from there, with the final tally being 7-1. Oakland again showed a total lack of power, managing just three doubles and eight singles, but their five walks combined with those eleven hits (and one Anaheim error) were enough to give Oakland plenty of runs. Mark Kotsay continued to hit well, with three singles, and Erubiel Durazo continued to get on base, with a single and two walks, but there was little individual offensive excitement, which you'd expect me to say after an eight-single game. The win pushed the A's back to a half game ahead of the Angels (tied in wins, one less loss) and a game behind Texas (tied in wins, two more losses), so this is a tight division right now. It's fun, especially when the West teams are playing each other, because every day results in a shift in the standings. Yesterday saw the A's drop from first to third, and the other two teams move up a spot each, and now Oakland is back to second. A win tomorrow coupled with a Texas loss would create a virtual tie for first, while a loss would drop Oakland to third place, regardless of what Texas does. Let's see what the standings looked like on this date for the past four years, the A's playoff years:

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 11:56 | |

I've finally managed to finish Weaver on Strategy, mainly because I decided to just sit down and finish it before I started the next magazine. The book was as good as advertised, and I can heartily recommend it to any baseball fan anywhere, anytime. You can see a lot of parallels between the things that Weaver was doing and saying at the time (the book was written in 1984) and the modern analytical movement. I think Earl Weaver is at least as influential as Bill James in the game, at least in terms of changing the game from the inside. Who knows how long the information revolution would have taken to reach baseball had it only been the geeks on the outside who were doing the analysis. Having a Weaver show that using data inside the game could really have a strong effect has probably made a world of difference in the rapidity of acceptance of these ideas in front offices and clubhouses around the major leagues. The book ends with a 2002 update, based on an interview done by Chris Kahrl, from Baseball Prospectus (this version of the book was published by Brassey, BP's publisher up until the 2004 version of the annual), but it's fairly short and far from comprehensive. I think I'm going to end up doing a series of posts about the book, particularly its relevance to the modern game. I'll probably go chapter-by-chapter, or something that approximates that. It should be a fun little exercise.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Reading at 10:53 | |

I first saw mention of this article at Athletics Nation. I won't post the full text here; you can get it at AN or at CBS. Arthur Rhodes has proven himself to be a Terrence Long-sized jackass. Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder come out and say that the bullpen needs to pick it up, because they do, and Rhodes gets mad and threatens them, saying, "[I]t's not going to be a pretty sight" if the starters criticize them again. Please. What's he going to do, go all Kenny Rogers on them in an elevator? Does he realize that Mark Mulder is 6'6" and big, that Tim Hudson would probably rip his head off? Does he realize that whether they have nine combined years of experience (more than the seven he claimed they had) compared to his thirteen, they've got nine years of A's experience compared to his one? Does he realize that, post-Giambi, if this team has a public face, it's probably Tim Hudson? And does he realize that when guys start acting out on this team, they tend to get traded to purgatory? The article mentions that the A's have had a loose, close-knit clubhouse for years, and while that's partially a consequence of winning (it's easier to be happy when you're in first place and in the playoffs), you have to wonder if it's also part of the A's overall plan for building a team. Maybe Oakland has decided that character and chemistry, despite the derision these things are regarded with in the analyst community, matter. And maybe it works. The problem, of course, is that Rhodes has little trade value at this point, especially given the size of his contract. The A's would have to consider themselves lucky to get a player of John Mabry's caliber back for him if they dumped him now, especially in the newly cost-conscious major league environment. Chris Hammond also took offense (note: another new addition to the team), but at least he went and cleared the air with the two starters. Rhodes has no plans to talk to Hudson and Mulder, which means he's just going to be all simmer-y out in the bullpen. If he can use it as motivation to go out and throw about three months worth of zeros, so that, in his words, "They'll come and kiss our butts," then great. By all means, do what you have to do. But if he still sucks and is causing tension, I hope Beane can find a creative way to ship him out. That three-year contract is looking worse and worse.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 14:48 | |

... shut the hell up. Ricardo Rincon's 1-2-3 sixth inning was the only good thing to happen to the A's last night, so it's a short post today.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 13:07 | |

I'm not panicking like some people are, but I'm a little tired of the A's losing at this point. Only scoring three runs against John Lackey and Scot Shields is ugly. Only making Lackey throw 108 pitches in eight innings is ugly. Not drawing a single walk all game is ugly. Managing just a pair of doubles as the "power" side of the offense is ugly. Giving up ten runs over the last four innings of the game is ugly. Giving up four spots in the fifth and eighth is ugly. Having the only reliable bullpen pitcher give up four runs in two innings is ugly. Batting a guy with a sub-.400 slugging percentage in the three hole is ugly. So you pretty much get the idea, there was a lot of ugliness last night, and that's just looking at the box score. Rich Harden was good early and bad late, throwing a scoreless four innings before blowing up in the fifth and sixth. Ricardo Rincon did his job, but Justin Duchscherer and Chad Bradford allowed more Anaheim runs to cross. This is new for Duchscherer, and it's kind of due, because he's no Eric Gagne, but it's starting to be old hat for Bradford. Maybe it's time to switch to the other arm. His right arm probably can't go any lower. It looks, from scanning the box, that the one positive I can take from last night's game is that Chone Figgins was held hitless. The dangerous Chone Figgins. The key to the Angels offensive gameplan, Chone Figgins. On the other hand, this hardly dooms the A's season. Last night's game does not display the need for ridiculous moves like trading for Carlos Beltran, then flipping him for Guillermo Mota. The Oakland offense this year, while it certainly looks better than last year's version, is of a type made familiar to be by Baseball Prospectus: a bunch of guys who aren't really doing a lot to put runs on the board, but who aren't so bad that they're easily replaceable. The only easy move, in my mind, would be to stop playing Damian Miller. The man has gotten his at-bats, so let him cherish them on the bench while Adam Melhuse does his Dave Nilsson impersonation. Maybe the A's have done some internal research that shows that Damian Miller is actually important to their pitching staff. It's doubtful, though, because the public studies that have been done have shown that there's little evidence that a catcher has much effect on the pitching of his battery-mates. Besides which, Miller's clearly not doing all that much to help the bullpen out.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 12:05 | |

Austen and I headed to Housing Works Book Store last night to see Alex Garland read from his new book, The Coma, be interviewed by James Frey, author of the memoir A Million Little Pieces, and sign books. We brought our copy of the 28 Days Later screenplay for Garland to sign, since we thought it'd be neat to have a signed copy of something that few people probably bother owning, signed or otherwise. And then, of course, because I'm stupid, I left it somewhere. Probably at the bookstore, because I didn't open my bag at any time on the way home. I called over there earlier, but the guy at the desk didn't see anything. He took my name and number and said he'd call if they found anything, but I'm pretty discouraged that it wasn't right there. I'm guessing someone picked it up. It's signed "For Jason and Austen," though, so perhaps it's not of great use or enjoyment for anyone not named Jason or Austen. If you happen to find it (long odds, but you try anything, don't you), e-mail me!

Posted by jason in Personal at 11:00 | |

Oakland had a lead going into the bottom of the ninth last night against the Cubs, as they'd reached Mark Prior for three runs in the fourth inning and Mark Mulder had only been touched for a run in the second and one in the seventh. Unfortunately, Mulder had thrown 123 pitches through eight innings, so he had to come out. With no Arthur Rhodes around (who would've only blown the game anyway), Chad Bradford came on and proceeded to get just one out while allowing two runs to cross the plate, snatching a defeat from the jaws of victory.

Anaheim and Texas both won, so the loss that should have been a win especially hurts, allowing both teams to come back to 1.5 games back of the A's.

Oakland didn't hit Mark Prior all that hard, but they got him to throw enough pitches (85 in 5 innings) that they got into the bullpen early. Unfortunately, Mike Remlinger, Francis Beltran, Kent Mercker, and Kyle Farnsworth combined to shut down the A's for the last four innings, allowing just three singles and a walk while striking out six.

The only-in-the-majors-because-Ellis-and-Chavez-are-hurt Esteban German did the most damage against Prior, hitting a two-RBI triple. That triple was the first extra-base hit of German's 78 at-bat major-league career, which shows exactly why he's not really a major leaguer. That's a horrid XBH rate, and pitchers know he's got no power, so he's not going to get the walks that kept him alive in the minor leagues. I recall Baseball Prospectus being relatively high on him for the last few years, figuring that he'd at least be a little above replacement level in case of an injury, but I'm not sure that's the case, and he's not young anymore: at 26, this is about as good as it gets.

Mulder pitched pretty well, though he gave up ten hits, but you'd like to see the A's stop letting pitchers start innings when they've already thrown 105 pitches, as Mulder did starting the eighth. If Mulder didn't get Patterson to hit into a double play after Derrek Lee's single, his count could have easily hit 130 had Ken Macha and Curt Young left him in. One has to hope that they wouldn't have left him in, but given the relatively cavalier way they've been treating pitch counts in the last few months, one worries.

An opponent writeup, from Alex Ciepley, is here.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 12:40 | |

Matt Clement pitched about as well as you'd expect him to against the A's, going eight innings and giving up just two runs while walking none and striking out eight. Unfortunately for the Cubs, Mark Redman did him one better, giving up only one unearned run in eight innings before giving way to Chad Bradford, who closed the 2-1 victory with a 1-2-3 ninth to earn his first save of the year. The other Mark that carried the team last night was Kotsay. The offensively-disappointing center fielder hit his fourth homer of the year and an RBI-double to provide all the runs the A's would get. Kotsay didn't hit his first homer of the year until June 2, but since then, he's added three more homers while raising his OBP by 29 points and his slugging percentage by 74. It's too much to expect the June Mark Kotsay to continue happening (.410 OBP/.582 SLG), but the overall Kotsay that has emerged (.355/.413) is pretty decent and wouldn't be a huge drain on the offense at the top of the order. In about an hour, a battle of two more Marks will begin: Mulder vs. Prior, which should be a hell of a matchup. Mulder has been everything the A's could have hoped for this year, and over his last seven starts, starting with the first of his three consecutive complete games, he's been great: in 54.2 innings, he's allowed 14 runs on 35 hits and 16 walks (seven of those coming in one game), while striking out 36 batters and getting 97 ground balls to 52 fly balls. The ratios for those numbers: 2.3 RA/9, 2.6 BB/9, 5.9 K/9, 2.25 K/BB, 0.93 WHIP, 1.87 GB/FB. Everything looks really good except for anything involving the walks. Obviously, his atrocious seven walk game is inflating things, but even without that, he's been walking a few more people than we should expect, so that could be an issue. On the other hand, the Cubs aren't a particuarly patient team, seventh from the bottom in the majors in walks (reflecting over the midpoint from the A's, who are seventh from the top), so Mulder's sinker that's so effective in getting ground balls when guys are chasing it down could result in a whole bunch of 6-3, 5-3, and 4-3 outs on first and second pitches. Mark Prior, on the other side, has had two very effective games (no runs in eleven innings) sandwiched around one bad game (5 runs in 3.2 innings). He could still be on a short leash, though, as he threw 92 pitches in five innings in his last start before being lifted, so even if he strikes out eight A's, like he did in that start, if the A's can make him throw a lot of pitches to do it, they can get into the Cub bullpen early and perhaps wreak some havoc there. Or they could get lucky and get to face the bad Prior, the one who gave up five walks while striking out just one against St. Louis ten days ago. More likely, though, we'll see another game like last night's.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 13:19 | |

I was writing this earlier, but I accidentally hit reload and lost the whole thing. Dumbass. The long and short: I went to Shea last night with Jay Jaffe, Cliff Corcoran, and Clay Cavaness; the Mets won; there was a long-ass rain delay; I got home late; they put our names on the Jumbotron (!); it was fun, though the game was possibly the dullest one I've ever been to. Fin.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 13:55 | |

My 200th entry in this blog is unfortunately to be a sad one: Ralph Wiley, one of the best, most interesting, most provocative, most original sportswriters around, passed on at home on Sunday. He was just 52, and his age and sudden death are eerily similar to Doug Pappas's passing. Like Pappas, Wiley often wrote things contrary to the accepted stream of thought of the American public, and like Pappas, he did it well enough that reading his work was an aesthetic pleasure as well as an intellectual one. I'm not familiar enough with Wiley's career body of work, but I read a number of his columns from his time at ESPN's Page 2, and they were always engaging, always creative, and always aggressive. Aggressiveness can be a distraction or an annoyance if it isn't done well, but this never seemed true of Wiley's work; rather, it was just all the more obvious that he felt true passion about his subject. Wiley's passion was not simply that of an admirer of sports and athletes, either. He wrote, more than any other sportswriter I know, about free speech, politics, and, most of all, about race. Wiley realized that the country still has a lot to work out in the field of race relations, and he never backed off from saying so loudly. As many said when the news of Doug Pappas's death was heard, we can only hope that writers absorb the lessons Wiley was trying to teach and continue down the path he blazed. UPDATE: Chris Lehmann has written a little something about Wiley as well. It's weird that of all the sports blogs I read, no one has really mentioned this. On the other hand, Wiley wasn't really known as a baseball writer, so I guess he was not really on the baseball blogosphere's radar.

Posted by jason in Reading at 18:39 | |

The A's have apparently decided that they're not going to let Eric Chavez's absence bother them one bit. They continued their crazy offensive run with a 13-3 pounding of the Pirates yesterday, their eighth straight win. Coupled with some rivals' losses, this pushed them 1.5 games ahead in the West, and they're a game ahead of Boston for the second best record in the whole AL, behind just the Yankees. As often happens when you score thirteen runs in a game, the A's rode big hitting days from a number of their players: Eric Byrnes, still hitting leadoff with his excellent .379 OBP, had a homer, two walks, and a double; Mark Kotsay, now hitting third, had four singles; Jermaine Dye had a triple (!) and two singles; Scott Hatteberg hit his eighth homer of the year along with a single; Erubiel Durazo had two singles and a double; and Adam Melhuse hit a grand slam for his fourth homer of the year. You always feel bad for the one guy who has a bad day in these games, because there's always one. In this case, it was Bobby Crosby, who was 0-5 with eight men left on base. The pitching has been clicking along without too many blips for Oakland, too. Mark Mulder continued his strong season (2.97 ERA) with eight innings of three-run ball, though two of the runs came on homers. Mulder was, as usual, very efficient, as he threw just 97 pitches, 61 of them for strikes. Someday soon, pitching coaches everywhere will be using Roy Halladay and Mark Mulder as the models for how they want their charges to act on the mound. Throw less pitches, get ground balls, and you'll pitch deep into games. Obviously, it's easier if you have the talent of a Mulder or Halladay, because it's not entirely their approach that makes them successful, but perhaps in the near future, if the paradigm of pitching shifts, strikeouts won't be as useful a predictor of future performance as they currently are. Anyway, Mulder has, as usual, been one of the best pitchers in his league, but has, as usual, been outshone by a teammate. Mulder is third in the AL in SNWAR, behind Curt Schilling and Tim Hudson. By pitcher VORP, he's also third, with Hudson leapfrogging Schilling into first. He's also third in the AL in ERA and WHIP, and, of course, first in complete games, on the strength of his three consecutive complete efforts earlier this year. Mulder is behind Tim Hudson (again) in ERA, while Jake Westbrook of the Indians is actually in the lead. Tim Hudson will probably be in the race for the Cy Young again this year, and Curt Schilling will be the gaudy East Coast candidate, while Mulder could be overlooked. On the other hand, if Mulder continues to run up his gaudy win total (8 so far), he could be the candidate who pulls out the victory despite having been a slightly inferior pitcher; Roy Halladay, in other words.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 14:46 | |

With the Lakers atrocious loss last night, it looks more over than ever for this team. They've got to take one of the next two in Detroit to keep the series alive, and even then, Detroit's proved that they can win in L.A., so a win doesn't guarantee anything. Let me take this opportunity, then, before the series ends, to point out a reason why I'll be happy even if the Lakers do end up losing the series and immortalizing themselves as the most dysfunctional team in the history of professional sports: Karl Malone still won't have a ring. I've hated the guy, as much as I hate any player (which, admittedly, isn't all that much, but still), ever since I became aware of him. Bernie Mac got it right the other day when he called Malone a dirty player. Malone is and always has been a bully, and as his skills have faded, his bullying seems to only have increased, as he tries desperately to hang on to his once formidable abilities to take over a game. ?ll also have a nice scapegoat for the season: Malone will be blamed for having brought his years and years of backlogged bad karma to the team, bringing his teammates down with him.

Posted by jason in Basketball, L.A. Lakers at 07:42 | |

Far too long a time, no write. It's too bad, because the A's have been inspired lately, perhaps realizing that they've got to pick it up if they're going to stay with the Angels while they wait for Eric Chavez to come back. Gloom and doomer that I am, I figured the A's were done as soon as I found out about Chavez's hand. Of course, with the A's pitching, you can't ever really call them done. Look how far the Cubs got last year, after all. Sometimes I wonder if Billy Beane isn't involved in some sick experiment where he's trying to see just how far pitching and defense alone can carry a team. Scott Hatteberg at first, Damian Miller behind the plate, Esteban German at third ... it's starting to get ugly for the offense. On the other hand, Hatteberg's been handy this year, and German's probably better than a lot of teams have for backup middle infielders. The Yankees, for instance. Anyway, the A's offense has been particularly good the last two nights, breaking out against the Reds for 23 runs over two games. Of course, it is the Reds, with their not-so-hot pitching staff, but still. They didn't bust out like this against Texas, and 23 runs against anybody is more than you'd expect, so it's a nice thing. A particularly happy note for the offense, at least for me, is that Bobby Crosby has really been turning it up lately. He had a slow start, as you might expect, being a newbie to MLB, trying to play a tough defensive position on a contending team, but he's raised his batting average to .258, which has brough his OBP to .316 and his nine homers and eleven doubles add up to a .472 slugging percentage. How many major league shortstops, 24-years old or not, have a .214 ISO? He's still not walking nearly as much as his minor-league records indicated he would, but maybe that'll come now that the other aspects of his offense are coming around. This offensive performance puts Crosby just in the top ten of major league shortstops by RARP. Some of the guys he's behind are probably products of his cold streak with their hot streaks: Royce Clayton, Cesar Izturis, and Jack Wilson don't seem likely to finish ahead of Crosby in this category next year, and for the first two, I'd even say Crosby should finish ahead of them this year. By the way, guess who the top offensive shortstop in the AL is this year? That's right, the Bavasi-discarded Carlos Guillen, for Detroit. A .320 EqA and all the playing time he can ask for has led to 25.4 RARP, good for fourth in all of the American League. His replacement at short, Rich Aurilia, is only 23.6 runs behind. This is yet another reason to think that the A's should contend in the West for a long time: Seattle's likely to go into a management-induced funk for the next three to four years, making them the automatic last-place finisher that Texas had been previously. Of course, Texas is looking like a tough team as some pitchers start to emerge and their offensive players mature as expected, so perhaps we're just trading a doormat for a contender, and things aren't actually going to get any easier for the A's. Speaking of contending, the A's win last night coupled with Anaheim's lost (their fourth in a row) pushed Oakland back into a tie for first place. The A's haven't been in first since their nose-dive at the end of April saw them go from three above .500 to four below. Oakland's been steadily climbing since then, with a few interruptions here and there (a sweep by Cleveland being one of them), but with Texas and Anaheim performing erratically of late, the A's are back where they want to be. Of course, there's a long road ahead, and six or seven weeks of that road are going to be Chavez-less, so we can't get too giddy yet.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 14:27 | |