I think last night against the Angels was a glimpse into the “what could have been” zone. How much better would our offense have been this season with Piazza hitting in the middle of the lineup? Could he have hit just enough for us to win those games we seem to lose 2-1 or when we don’t score at all? Could he have hit well enough for us to hang on to Bradley who has hit 3 hrs with San Diego now and .379 in his last 7 games, .318 over his shortened season? With those two in the middle protecting Swisher, and with Kotsay’s back healthy, are you telling me we couldn’t have won at least 1/2 of those games where our offense looked like someone slipped every player a sleep aid? I think we would have been right there.

Comments(0)

Almost as if they decided to immediately begin implementing my plan, the A’s traded Jason Kendall to the Cubs for basically nothing.  The real reason for the trade was to clear playing room for Kurt Suzuki, a promising rookie who will most certainly hit better and make a ton less money for the next few years.  Although I was calling for Jason’s ouster as the starter, I will miss him as he was a competitor who truly did do the little things to win a ballgame. There are four things I will remember about Jason the most:

1) The way he would keep his elbow out when confronted by an inside pitch, usually getting hit by nothing more than a glancing blow.

2) The way he would always follow through into the batter who had stepped across the plate  on his throws down to second, thus giving us an easy out.

3) His headfirst dive to block the plate to get the final out vs. the hated Angels.

4) His scamper home on the missed catch play involving K-Rod.

He might not have been as valuable as the A’s insisted he was, but he played hard everyday and did everything he could to help the team win.  Goodbye and good luck Jason.

Comments(0)

Friends and Family,

Thank you all for coming. Today is a sad, although somewhat expected, day. Today marks the death of any chance the 2007 version of the Oakland Athletics had to make the playoffs. Like the rest of you, I held out hope that the A’s could get healthy and put together another patented second half run that would at least put them back into contention. I am here to tell you folks, it ain’t going to happen. Harden is back on the D.L., Piazza is still there trying to make a throw down to second which he was never that good at in the first place, and Dallas Braden is back in the rotation.

There is a poll on the A’s website asking whether or not the A’s should be buyers or sellers. Is there any question? First of all, who is out there that could actually help us turn around the season. Second, if there was someone out there that could actually do that, would the A’s really have what it takes to get a deal done, or better yet, would they even want to. It became painfully obvious when the A’s traded Milton Bradley that they were not going to mortgage the future for this season. The A’s must be sellers.

I am actually all right with this, I am still completely behind ownership and the front office. They have been solid for almost a decade and have given us no reason to doubt them. In fact, if we hadn’t used 46 different players this year due to injury, I have no doubt that we would have been in contention till the very end. The truth is, this team is set up for next year, but only if we finish this season right. Several moves must be made in order for the team to be a true contender for next season.

1) Shut down Harden, Street, and the Duke. There is no point in rushing any type of rehab for a lost season. Get them surgery, better rehab, whatever it takes for them to be ready for next season. Don’t pull another Kotsay waiting for it to get better from rest alone only to have surgery right as the season is starting.

2) Trade Piazza, Embree, Stewart, and Johnson. There is a market for all of them. We won’t get prize prospects, but they have no future here so we might as well get what we can.

3) Play the rookies: Promote Daric Barton and play him at first base, sit Kendall and start Suzuki for the rest of the year, play Buck in right field (if he is healthy, if his tendinitis is bothering him, don’t risk it, he has already proven he belongs), use Santiago Casilla as the closer (and teach him a viable pickoff move/quick step to keep runners from stealing all over him), and finally, bring up Dan Meyer and see if he is going to be the real deal.

4) Sit Crosby until he learns to think opposite field first. If I have to watch him strikeout on three straight pitches with a runner in scoring position again, Sophie will be in danger of hearing words unsuitable for a 3 month old.

Simple formula, nothing out of the ordinary for the A’s who are always forward thinking. Now let’s get started.

Comments(3)

I made sure to watch the All-Star Game just to catch Dan Haren in action on a worldwide stage, and I wasn’t disappointed (RBI – Pitcher’s Mound). Haren did a phenomenal job against some of the best hitters in baseball.

I’m terrified for him, though. Why? Because I was alive in 2004.

If you, like me, are more than three years old, you probably remember Mark Mulder pitching for the A’s in 2004 and putting together the most dominant first half put together by a pitcher in recent memory, with a 17-2 record, .0007 ERA and 14 complete games, none of which lasted more than 45 minutes (all stats estimated).

He started the All-Star game for the AL that year, just like Haren this year, and pitched two perfect innings, striking out 11 (see above).

Then the bottom fell out.

Whether it was due to the stress of a suddenly-tight pennant race, way too many innings pitched, the uncertainty of a possible trade coming at any second or a secret injury kept hidden from the public by the ever-conniving Billy Beane, Mulder came completely unglued in the second half. He didn’t win a single game in the second half, finishing up with a 0-114 record and an ERA that cannot be calculated without the aid of powerful NASA supercomputers (once again, see above).

Net result? The A’s lost the division to the Angeles by one game (not estimated), and Mulder has never been the same.

Fortunately, Haren isn’t pitching with the strain of a tight pennant race on him, as the A’s, beginning the second half of the season, are 314 games under .500 and 8 jabillion games out of first. Still, the increasingly fragility of the pitching staff (I’m looking at you, Harden . . . and Loaiza . . . and Ducschererererer . . . and Street . . . ) and the sad reality that the offense isn’t getting any better no matter how much Barton tears it up in AAA makes it strongly apparent just how important Danny Haren is to both the present and the future of this team. As goes Haren, so go we all.

So is Haren pulling a Mulder this year, dominating the first half before completely flaming out in the second half as a precursor to being traded to a midwestern team (like Mulder was to St. Louis, netting the A’s (DUM DUM DUM) Dan Haren???!!! Spooky!!) and signing a big bucks multi-year deal before settling comfortably into mediocrity for the remainder of his disappointing career?

I don’t think so.

I hope not.

I’m still terrified.

Comments(0)

http://mvn.com/mlb-athletics/2007/07/09/harden-finally-going-under-the-knife/

Comments(0)