It seems like I only  write a blog post after a ridiculously long extra inning game. But how could I not? Yesterday’s 18-inning win over the Yankees completed a series sweep and was probably the biggest win of the year, in a year when there will hopefully be many, many more big wins.

Thank goodness it was a day game – the longest day game in Oakland A’s history – so I could watch it live. Of course, it was after 8 p.m. here when Nate Freiman’s broken bat single scored John Jaso in the bottom of the 18th, so it didn’t feel like much of a day game by then. But it was a win and I don’t really care what time those come.

Freiman got the post-game interview and pie on the field, but it was Jesse Chavez who was the hero of this game. Jesse Chavez – the guy I often forget is even an Oakland A. He is the definition of 25th man. But this 25th man shut down the New York Yankees offense for 5 2/3 innings, getting key strikeouts in bases loaded situations two innings in a row as well. Wins for pitchers are usually a pointless stat, but the W next to Chavez’s name on this box score should have an exclamation point.

This game happened the same day that two different pieces about the A’s hit the blogoshpere. One was an ESPN Insider piece called “Be Wary of the A’s,” and the other was on Fangraphs, titled “The Hidden Juggernaut in Oakland.”

The ESPN article, which I couldn’t read in its entirety since I don’t waste my money on Insider, had the sub-headline, “Oakland’s record is misleading due to number of wins against bad teams,” so you can imagine what it had to say – 9-0 against the Astros, etc.

The Fangraphs article doesn’t just use the sample size of the 2013. It goes back to June 13 of last year, and notes that the A’s are the best team in baseball over the last calendar year with record of 108-60. Sure, they’re not going to sustain the .800 ball they’ve been playing for the past month, but this 108 wins is not a small sample size of good baseball. This is a full year.

Much has been made in the light of last season’s magical run about Bob Melvin and the platooning. And I think this year’s team is better than last year’s because of the depth and versatility. Most teams aren’t going to have Chris Youngs and Seth Smiths to turn to when the entire starting outfield lands on the DL. Free agent signed to be the starter at shortstop hasn’t played a day in the big leagues and it’s mid June? No problem – we’ve got Jed Lowrie.

This is a team that is built to sustain itself over the course of a long season and hopefully into the postseason, and it’s just getting started. Go A’s!!

Well I’m a bit belated on talking about that 19-inning game that the A’s played four days ago, but I was belated on watching the game itself. This season I have been watching west coast night games the next day. I have my MLB.tv At Bat app set to “hide scores” so I won’t see the final scores for games played the night before. Then, I just watch the game like normal and stay off Facebook and Twitter for a few hours.

Well, Tuesday morning and afternoon, I had to stay off Facebook and Twitter for more than just a few hours. I turned on the game at 7:30 a.m. and it was after 2:00 p.m. when it was finally over.

I was  little spoiled though, despite  having “hide scores” set on my MLB.tv app. The app still told me that the game was “Final/19.” So I knew it was 19 innings. So that means that I wasn’t worried when the Angels were up 7-2 going into the bottom of the 8th. I knew the comeback was coming; I just didn’t know how. I called a couple of grand slams – one by Brandon Moss and one by Josh Donaldson – but that didn’t happen. Instead the A’s chipped away that five-run lead on a Jed Lowrie RBI single, a Donaldson 2-RBI single, and a Chris Young pinch hit RBI single.

And then it was Yoenis Cespedes – the man the A’s missed so badly for the two weeks he was on the disabled list – who came up with the game tying RBI in the bottom of the 9th to send this game into the history-making marathon that nobody in O.co knew they were getting into.

Now one thing I wondered when I saw that it was such a long game was, who the heck was going to pitch all those innings? The game was started by Dan Straily, who had been called up from Sacramento to make a spot start for Brett Anderson, who was nursing an ankle injury. Anderson wasn’t on the D.L. though, and the A’s were going with a six-man bullpen instead of seven. I fully expected a position player to come in and pitch at some point.

But then Anderson himself came into the game in the 13th inning. Well, he was on normal rest and the ankle injury wasn’t enough to D.L. him, so I guess why not? He went 5 1/3 innings and ended up leaving the game after aggravating his injury, so it’s hard to say it was a great idea to put him in there, but it was kind of a great idea to put him in there. Hindsight and all, I know, but the A’s don’t win the game without him. And he might’ve ended up on the D.L. anyway.

He did give up a run on a questionable bases loaded walk in the 15th inning, but the A’s tied it up again in the bottom of the 15ht, an an Adam Rosales RBI single. Then, the game dragged to the 19th inning, Jerry Blevins pitched an inning and 2/3 of scoreless ball, and Brandon Moss mercifully ended the late night contest on a two-run homer to right field. I was most excited though when the A’s got the final out in the top of the 19th though, because that’s when I knew it’d go down as a win for the green and gold.

What a game – the longest in Oakland A’s history. And it’s not one I’ll soon forget. Go A’s!!

Sixteen games into the season now, the A’s are 12-4 and have the best record in the American League and are second only to the Braves in all of baseball. To be fair and realistic about it though, you have to look at two different records – versus Astros and versus non-Astros.

The A’s just finished their second sweep of the season against the Houston Astros on Wednesday to put their record at 6-0 against their new division mates. Unfortunately we won’t see these guys again until May 24, but fortunately, we still have 13 more games against them.

It’s not like the Astros are solely responsible for the A’s flashy record, as the A’s are 6-4 against teams that are not the Astros. They have split a four-game series against the Mariners, swept the Angels in three games, and dropped two out of three to the Tigers.

Break it down even more and you see that the A’s are 1-2 against over .500 teams (Detroit) and 11-2 against under .500 teams. All those under .500 teams are also in their division. Hey, you’ve got to beat the teams you’re supposed to beat, so I don’t see much wrong with that statistic. Also, those two losses against Detroit included pitching performances from two guys (Brett Anderson and Jarrod Parker) who won’t pitch that poorly very often. I think you can expect them to improve on .333 against over .500 teams. But they’ll also likely regress from .846 against under .500 teams.

Conclusion? It’s early. Really early.

The A’s get another struggling team this weekend in Tampa Bay. Let’s hope they keep it going. Not only are they 11-2 against under. 500 teams, but they are 6-0 on the road. Go A’s!

Well we are one week into a new Oakland A’s season and the A’s are 5-2. That is about as good as we could have expected over a seven-day stretch. I was worried when the team started 0-2 and scored a grand total of one run over 18 innings, but luckily all they needed was a dose of Houston and non-Felix pitching to get the offense going.

It was really nice to get a weekend sweep, but just how bad is Houston? They are 1-6 on the season, are hitting an A.L.-worst .201 as a team, and are tied for the most in runs allowed in the A.L. That won’t result in winning many games, and the A’s took advantage.

So far the new guys for the A’s have been a revelation, most notably Jed Lowrie. The guy who got reactions of “why?” when he was acquired is showing us why as the team’s everyday shortstop and leading the team in average, OPS, and RBI. I think Hiroyuki Nakajima is going to have a hard time getting his job back, and his rehab stint will turn into a more permanent job as the Rivercats’ shortstop – at least until Lowrie – who hasn’t played 100 games in a big-league season ever – gets injured.

Speaking of injuries, Josh Reddick’s slide into the wall in Sunday’s game looked bad when he came up holding his wrist, but it’s apparently just sprained. I’m sure he’ll miss at least a game or two in L.A. though, which should give an opportunity to another hot new guy, Chris Young, who is second in the team in OPS behind Lowrie. Yes, depth is very good.

After that Houston distraction, it’s back to playing against real teams as the A’s start a three-game series with the Angels tonight. Go A’s!!

The long wait is nearly over. Since last night, there is actual regular season baseball being played, and I’m watching some of it on MLB.tv while waiting eight more hours for the A’s.

It’s been nearly six months since we saw meaningful baseball being played by the green and gold. (I don’t count spring training. It’s not meaningful to me to watch guys like Andy Parrino and Brian Gordon in games where the outcome doesn’t mean a thing.) That was a quite an emotional roller coaster the last time we saw them. It’ll be good to recapture at least a little bit of that emotion again in tonight’s game.

There wasn’t a ton of stuff going on for the A’s during spring training, though the most surprising roster moves as they cut the roster down to 25 for the regular season was the inclusion of Nate Freiman. Of course, Adam Rosales and Hiro Nakajima opening the season on the DL helped make this happen, but it’s still a surprise to see a guy who hasn’t played above Double-A make the team. He was a Rule 5 pick of the Astros and then the A’s claimed him off waivers a week ago (you can waive Rule 5 guys?) so they’d have to keep him on the big league roster all season to hang onto him. It sounds like he’ll get a little time against lefty pitchers until the inevitable roster crunch provides problematic for his roster spot.

The other interesting thing in recent days are the guys who the A’s cut ties with. Both Daric Barton and Travis Blackley were designated for assignment, so they’ll both either be traded or waived, and I doubt either one of them clears waivers. Barton’s 2010 seems like so long ago, but it’s time to move on. And I’ll always remember Blackley for his tough as nails performance in the final Texas series last October, and of course for his Twitter hashtags (my favorite is #ourbad).

Well tonight we get back to it! It’s the Mariners (again?) and King Felix (again?), and the A’s are 0-8 in their last eight Opening Days. For the first time this season, Go A’s!