The A’s keep losing, and what can I say about it? They keep struggling to score runs. Their bullpen – besides Andrew Bailey and Craig Breslow – is awful. Their starting pitching has been only OK of late, and they need to be great for this putrid offense to squeak across a run or two [...]

Thank goodness. It’s time to go back to Oakland and, more importantly, go back to playing by American League rules.
A few thoughts from the weekend series with St. Louis:
1. What does Matt Holliday have against Oakland? First he played like crap when he was with the A’s. And then he kicks our asses to the [...]

Bob, your starting pitcher was dealing today and had only thrown 83 pitches through 6 innings. He had retired the last seven batters he faced. But you pulled him.
Oh, I know, his spot was due up in the top of the 7th inning. Mark Ellis led off that inning with a home run to break [...]

This is the first time this season I’ve taken a look at the team’s VORP standings on Baseball Prospectus. If you don’t know what VORP is, it stands for Value Over Replacement Player and you can read more about it here.
Offense
Top three performers:
Daric Barton – 14.3
Kurt Suzuki – 8.8
Adam Rosales – 8.7
Barton at the top [...]

The A’s are such a roller coaster of a team.
Ten days ago they were just getting started on a five-game losing streak in which they scored only five runs. It was maddening; it was pathetic. Then the Mariners came to town and they kicked them around to the tune of 14 runs over two games. [...]