1. Now that the streak has been broken, will the A’s fall back in line in a good way or a bad way? Tonight, Dallas Braden will try to pick up where either Josh Outman or Brett Anderson left off (hopefully the former) against the very unscary Francisco Liriano (2-7, 6.12 ERA).

2. Speaking of Josh Outman, is the trade of Joe Blanton to the Phillies last summer one of Billy Beane’s best?

2009 Outman: 4-0, 3.17 ERA, 49 K’s in 59.2 IP, 1.17 WHIP
2009 Blanton: 4-3, 5.46 ERA, 58 K’s in 64.1 IP, 1.46 WHIP

And then the A’s also have Adrian Cardenas and Matthew Spencer in the minors.

Of course, since Blanton helped the Phillies win the World Series last year, is what he’s doing now pretty much irrevelent? Still looking to be a good trade for the A’s anyway.

3. The A’s selected USC shortstop Grant Green with their first round pick in the first-year player draft yesterday. A lot of people are excited and comparing him to Evan Longoria and Troy Tulowitski. But, is he more Bobby Crosby than Longoria/Tulo?

He’s 6′3″, 180, a right-handed hitter, and projected somewhat as a five-tool player. Sounds like he’s got some defensive issues so it’s up in the air whether he will stay at short or convert to third.

He’s also a Scott Boras client, so the other thing to wonder is, will the A’s have a hard time signing him?

Hopefully the Crosbyishness and the Boras connection are much ado about nothing.

Go A’s!!

I have to admit, despite the A’s winning ways the past week or so, I’ve yet to get back into full paying attention mode, as I worry that once I do, things will go south again and we’ll be back to normal.

Unless, of course, this is normal. Check out some of these team stats:

Runs scored

Season overall: 233 (21st in MLB)
Last 7 days: 34 (T-7th in MLB)

Slugging percentage

Season overall: .363 (30th in MLB)
Last 7 days: .425 (11th in MLB)

Total bases

Season overall: 665 (30th in MLB)
Last 7 days: 97 (T-7th in MLB)

That’s some vast improvement. That’s what we were expecting coming into the season, so is that what we’re going to get going forward?

And as for the pitching, the arrival of Vin Mazzaro seemed to jumpstart everything. He’s been riding a hot streak all season, and now the other rookies are ready to jump on the bandwagon.

The weather is heating up and so are the A’s. Can we keep it going against tougher opponents than Baltimore? We’ll see in the coming days and weeks.

Go A’s!!

Yikes! This 2009 version of the Oakland Athletics is in a nosedive right now, and I’m not sure the pilot or co-pilot know what to do to straighten things out and get us flying again. Game after game, it’s miserable pounding after miserable pounding.

Where can we get some help?

Send Sean Gallagher down and bring Vin Mazzaro up. I wanted to believe all Gallagher needed was a rotation spot and a few starts to get it going. Well, it hasn’t been pretty. Then you have Mazarro in AAA who was recently named PCL Player of the Week after throwing a near no-hitter a week agao today. Get this guy in green and gold. It can’t be worse, and maybe after the 349th try, we’ll find something that clicks.

Send either Trevor Cahill or Brett Anderson down when Justin Duchscherer comes off the DL. Why not Josh Outman, you ask? He may not have nearly as high of a ceiling as the other two, but he’s at least pitching consistently and is somewhat convincing impersonating a major-leaguer. Anderson and Cahill have a lot to work to do and AAA is the place to do it.

Trade Matt Holliday for a major-leage ready third base prospect. Granted, this might not happen until clear in July, but I have to believe Billy Beane has been on the phone already to see who is interested. Mat Gamel of Milwaukee is the most obvious target, but the Brewers probably want him to replace Bill Hall sooner than later. And who is going to want to rent Matt Holliday for three months, and is he even going to bring top talent? The picture will be clearer in July. But with Jack Hannahan and and Bobby Crosby getting the bulk of playing time at the hot corner, and the writing on the wall that Eric Chavez’s carrer may be over, we have to get a third baseman in any Holliday deal.

Promote Sean Doolittle once he’s back from his DL stint and gets a couple good weeks in at AAA. No more of this Jason Giambi at first base nonsense. It’s time to find a young first baseman who can play solid defense and have an impact with the bat. Maybe Doolittle is that guy. It wouldn’t hurt to try it on and see if it fits. (Sorry, Daric Barton. You and your .205 batting average in AAA are off my radar.)

Fire Bob Geren. I’ve been hesitant to get on this bandwagon because he has crap to work with, but sometimes it’s just time for new blood. I’m sure Bob is a nice guy and he looked great in his tux at Billy Beane’s wedding. But he can’t possibly be doing anything to help this team. A lot of teams would’ve given their manager the hook by now in the same situation. It’s time for the A’s to get some cajones and say goodbye to Bob.

We’ll see if any of these things happen in the next two months. I’m waiting for a shake-up - any shake-up. Go A’s…

It was nice of Orlando Cabrera to hold a hitters-only meeting before last night’s game against the Royals to rally what has been a dreadful offense. And it was nice of the A’s to put eight runs on the board by the end of the second inning, not only for Trevor Cahill’s sake, but for mine as well, as it was nice to be able to go to bed at a reasonable time with a smile on my face and dreams of men in white cleats crossing home plate at a rapid pace.

Twelve runs in one game - it’s the most the A’s have scored in a single game yet in 2009, and a game after being shut out for the fourth time in their thirty games played. Poor Luke Hochevar (career vs. OAK: 6.2 IP, 14 ER) must hate the Oakland A’s.

Of course the pessimist in me thinks they’ll get shut out again tonight, and we’ll be saying, “Couldn’t they have saved some of those runs for tonight?” But it’ll help that the A’s miss Zack Grienke (6-1, 0.51 ERA) on this short series with the Royals. Instead we’ll try to keep it going against Brian Bannister tonight.

Can we have some of this every day?

Sadly, no, but it was nice for one day. How about half of last night’s runs and six innings from Josh Outman. OK, A’s? Let’s go A’s!

Every now and then, I like to check out the A’s page on Baseball Prospectus to see who are the top three position players and top three pitchers by VORP. And even more interesting, sometimes, is the number of players who have positive VORP and negative VORP. So let’s check it out as it stands on Mother’s Day 2009.

Top three batters:

Jack Cust - 8.4
Kurt Suzuki - 5.9
Bobby Crosby - 2.4

Say what?! Cust and Suzuki were no-brainers, but Crosby? I would’ve guessed about five or six guys before I guessed him.

But this is not a testament to how good Crosby has been (.254/.375/.373), as the A’s have only four offensive players with a positive VORP. FOUR! The only other guy in the black is…. Jack Hannahan! Wow…

The VORP report for pitching is better, as only two pitchers have a negative VORP, and one of them is currently in AAA, while the other was recently called up after spending time in AAA. Yes, it’s Jerry Blevins and Dana Eveland, with Eveland being the worst.

Here are your top three:

Dallas Braden - 13.1
Andrew Bailey - 11.1
Trevor Cahill & Michael Weurtz - tied with 7.8

No surprises there, with the top two starters and the top two relievers making the list. Of note, however, is that another starter doesn’t appear on the list until #10, and it’s Sean Gallagher (#7 if you count Dan Giese). Our starters are barely hovering in positive territory, and the relievers are picking up the slack.

We’ll need to see some better performances by our starters our the relievers are going to be less and less effective if Bob Geren has to run them out there to pitch their arms off.

I’ll try to remember to do this again in a month and I hope to see Matt Holliday there in that top three.

Go A’s!!

A’s fans were really excited when Billy Beane traded for Matt Holliday in the offseason. He was supposed to carry this horrid offense to the top of American League. But now, he’s not worth his weight in white cleats to the A’s fans.

1. He’s not putting up big numbers. When they A’s traded for this guy, A’s fans expected a .315, 30-HR, 100-RBI guy. He may still be that guy, but so far he’s on pace to only be a .240, 12-HR, 90-RBI guy. Decent on the RBI, but otherwise he’s Mark Ellis in left field.

Add that to the fact that he’s a free agent next year, and you have the next reason A’s fans hate Matt Holliday.

2. He’s going to be lousy trade bait in July. The fallback option on this Matt Holliday rental has always been, “Oh well, if the A’s aren’t contending in July, at least we can trade Holliday.” Ideally, this would be fore a big haul from some team who thinks they have a shot at the World Series.

But who is going to give up a big haul for Mark Ellis in left field? And even if they do consider his Colorado track record (Coors Field effect, anyone?), he’s still the soon-to-be free agent with Scott Boras as an agent. Unless it’s New York or Boston, nobody is doing a trade and sign with this guy.

And maybe the third reason A’s fans hate Matt Holliday comes into play because he’s too busy mentally counting his 2010 money while patrolling left field.

3. He doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve. Fans always want players who look like they care as much as we do. We hollar, scream, and flail about, and we want the players on the field to do the same so we can feel like they bleed green and gold as much as we do. Matt Holliday doesn’t do this, and A’s fans rag on his I-don’t-care body language, must like they’ve done over the years with Eric Chavez.

Would a Derek Jeter fist-pump or a Miguel Tejada “&*#@$!” scream from Holliday make A’s fans feel better? Maybe. Probably. But the fact of the matter is, as long as he’s playing like crap, the A’s are playing like crap, and he continues to wear the same look on his face like he’s in the dentist office waiting room, A’s fans will continue to hate Matt Holliday.

What a weekend we just had, huh? Not only did the A’s lose a 15-inning see-saw battle today, but Friday they blew a five-run lead en route to a loss, and Saturday, they got a lucky win because Bobby Crosby got lucky blowing through a stop sign at third base - an offense for which we would have villified him if he had been thrown out.

Three winable games, 33 innings, and only one win. Ugh.

With yesterday’s game being an afternoon game on a Thursday, I missed IT.

Of course, I had to go back on MLB.tv this morning so I could see IT. And man, was IT awesome.

IT, of course, is this:

IT was Ryan Sweeney robbing Ian Kinsler of a three-run home run in the eighth inning, with the score at 3-1 in the A’s favor. IT was was a catch that meant the difference between winning and losing. IT was Ryan Sweeney saving the day.

Sometimes I hear people saying the A’s never should have traded Nick Swisher. But I tell you this: Nick Swisher would NOT have made that catch.

Go A’s!!

Uh oh.

Losing a game is bad, but losing not one… not two… not three… but four! players to injury is much, much worse.

Say goodbye to both Mark Ellis and Nomar Garciaparra, who were placed on the disabled list with calf injuries sustained in Tuesday’s game. We’ve seen the Nomar injury coming, but Ellis’ was sudden. Luckily we’ve got an adequate reinforcement in Eric Patterson, who is hitting .329 in Sacramento. Hopefully the A’s do bring him up and start him. Let’s get some new blood in this lineup and see what happens.

Brett Anderson also had to leave the game early due to a finger blister. Hopefully they took him out in time so he can still pitch on turn this weekend. And Santiago Casilla, who left the game before the 8th inning after pitching one inning, is day-to-day.

It was disheartening to see Andrew Bailey struggle and cough up the lead in the 6th, but Orlando Cabrera’s error didn’t help. Nor did Jason Giambi’s in the eighth when Michael Weurtz gave up the lead for good in the 8th and took the loss.

So today we’ll see Eric Patterson and a reliever called up, and hopefully NO MORE INJURIES. Enough already.

Go A’s…

Well it sure looks like all the A’s needed to get a few good wins was to face a couple of righty pitchers.

Matt Garza and Andy Sonnanstine were the victims of the A’s attack Saturday and Sunday respectively. Southpaw Scott Kazmir on Friday? Not so much, as he limited the A’s two hits and no runs in six innings, for more of the same and an extension of the losing streak to five.

Luckily it didn’t get any further than that, as the A’s offense made sure of on Saturday and Sunday. And the big contributors were two guys who didn’t play much in the horrid road trip - Nomar Garciaparra and Travis Buck. Nomar was 3-for-6 with 4 RBI in the two weekend games, while Buck (he’s alive!) was 3-for-7 with a home run over the two days. Kurt Suzuki kept at his torrid pace as well, going 2-for-5 with 3 RBI Friday and Sunday (he sat Saturday).

Not counting Trevor Cahill’s struggles Friday night, we saw some good pitching from the A’s in Dallas Braden, Dana Eveland, and the ‘pen. Braden is really coming into his own and being consistent. I’m at the point now where I look forward to his starts.

This week the Rangers have three righties lined up for us. Thank goodness. Let’s get the road trip off on the right foot.

Go A’s!!