The A's lost last night for the first time in five games, and there's no shame in dropping a 6-2 ballgame when the starting pitching matchup is Ryan Glynn for your team against Roy Halladay for theirs.

Glynn, who I didn't even know was on the A's (the game story says the he was acquired in a trade with these same Blue Jays about a month ago), pitched pretty well: three runs in seven innings will win you a lot of ballgames (unless you're playing for a team that can't hit). The final score was worse than 3-2, though, because of, as usual, Juan Cruz. Cruz got smacked for three runs despite not recording an out and has now allowed 24 runs in 20 innings on the year. The Tim Hudson trade now looks downright awful: Dan Meyer is hurt, Charles Thomas can't hit, and Juan Cruz can't pitch. Plus, Tim Hudson's ERA is hovering around three.

It's not like it was a bad deal, though, because you have to evaluate the trade on its merits at the time. Oakland was dumping salary and got two good players (Meyer and Cruz) and one potentially okay one in return. That nobody has turned out well has to be laid at someone's feet, but it can't be entirely Beane.

Dan Johnson, I'd like to note, while he's hitting just .185 with only one extra base hit, has walked about once a game, for a total of seven walks in 34 plate appearances. His OBP is a respectable .353. If he continues to walk like that while raising his batting average to something along the lines of .250 (which seems pessimistic), we'd have a pretty valuable player on our hands. On the other hand, if he doesn't hit for any more power, we're looking at Jeremy Giambi-style value, rather than Jason Giambi-style.

Ryan Glynn doesn't have a PECOTA projection, but glancing at his numbers, I wouldn't want A's fans to get too excited about him. Even adjusting for that pitchers' hell-hole in Texas he threw in for his first three seasons, his career ERA is 4.87. He walks too many guys (4 per nine) and doesn't strike out enough of them (4.2 per nine). On the other hand, he struck out six last night, and in his last couple of years in AAA (Syracuse and Richmond), has average over 7.5 K/9, despite having cracked seven just once in five prior stops in AAA (Oklahoma a few times, then Calgary and Indianapolis). Perhaps he learned something, perhaps he's peaking, or perhaps it's a fluke, but Glynn is a low-risk, medium-upside kind of player for this team, so why not? It's not like Britt Reames, who was DFA'd to make room for Glynn, was going to provide any better stuff.