I love beating the Halos. I love beating them in close games, and I also love kicking their asses from Anaheim to Los Angeles.

Guess who has the best record in the American League?

I had a dream last night that Justin Duchscherer was out for the season. I was relieved when I woke up, as I remembered that he threw from 140 feet on Wednesday and is on pace to return to the A’s in about a week. That’s good, because I really don’t want to see Lenny DiNardo penciled in at starter for more than five games this season (he’s already pitched two).

Lenny’s 2007 shamrock is obviously gone and last night’s game was no exception. Given the fact that the A’s offense hasn’t scored more than two runs in a game in the last five games, we can’t afford trotting guys like Lenny DiNardo out there every fifth day.

So if Justin truly comes back to stay at the end of this month, that’s a good thing. Then we only have that #1 spot in the rotation to worry about, though at least Greg Smith is earning his keep so far.

This weekend we get the Royals and a look at the surprisingly good Brian Bannister tonight. If we can get the 2007 versions of both Bannister and Chad Gaudin, we’ll be OK. Too bad it’s 2008.

Go A’s!!

I didn’t catch a glimpse of tonight’s game, but when I see that the A’s won in dramatic fashion with this in the scoring summary:

Top 6th: Oakland - J. Cust grounded into fielder’s choice, T. Buck scored, D. Barton to third, M. Sweeney out at second, D. Barton scored on shortstop D. Eckstein’s throwing error

… well, I’m sorry I missed it.

Looks like Travis Buck got not one, but two hits! And Ryan Sweeney continued hitting well. Huston Street got a save, and Chad Gaudin was not-so-good in his first ‘08 start.

Tomorrow my computer goes officially offline as we have to move all our furniture into the garage to have new carpet installed. So I’ll likely miss Greg Smith making his A’s debut tomorrow in place of the recently DLed Justin Duchscherer.

Go A’s!!

Considering the A’s went into the weekend series with Cleveland with only one win on their 2008 resume, I have no problem seeing this team at a 3-4 record after its first seven games.

Opening up against the two teams that were in last year’s ALCS is not an easy way to start, but the A’s held their own. Justin Duchscherer and Dana Eveland matched up against Paul Byrd and C.C. Sabathia respectively, and beat them both. And Joe Blanton’s Sunday start was another good one, even though he probably faced a couple batters more than he should have.

The offense was there two out of the three games as well. The A’s have now scored five or more runs in a game four out of their seven games played. Of course, the other three games, they scored one or zero. But the offense exists, and has shown up more than it hasn’t.

It’s time for the first road trip of ‘08 as the A’s travel to Toronto this week. Tuesday is Rich Harden’s turn in the rotation - yay! And thanks to the Eastern time zone starting time, I might actually stay awake for all nine innings.

Go A’s!!!

I was beginning to think we were going to have to play all our games against Boston this year, but thankfully I saw the A’s scheduled to play a team with the abbreviation “CLE” this weekend. Thank goodness.

Since I now have a day job that requires me to be away from home in the afternoons, I don’t have the luxury of watching A’s games on weekday afternoons. At least I see I didn’t miss much, except for our boy Rich Harden silencing the Red Sox bats yet again. Unfortunately, we can’t clone Rich and have more Riches coming out of the bullpen to relieve the real Rich, as that’s where this game was decided.

Well, that’s not completely true, as the A’s had to bat too. But even sitting Captain O-fer (Travis Buck) and putting Mike Sweeney in the lineup couldn’t produce any results on the home section of the scoreboard.

I am looking forward to seeing some different guys facing off against the green and gold this weekend. Though I hear that CLE team is pretty good too…

Go A’s!!

The A’s are back at home. Of course, they were the “home team” in Japan, but now they’re really home. Or are they? I could have sworn there was a lot of “Youk” going on from the Oakland crowd last night. I wonder if the Red Sox got the home clubhouse in Oakland too…

OK, I promise not to complain about it anymore… this week.

I did manage to catch a few innings of the game in between writing a recap of Big Brother for Reality News Online and going to bed (I’m two hours later than the A’s :(), and it looked like Dice-K had our number this time around. Poor Travis Buck took over the Golden Sombrero from Jack Cust and is 0-for-2008 with seven strikeouts. Even our on-base machine, Daric Barton, didn’t get on base for the first time in his major league career.

It’s getaway day today, on day before a day that both teams have off… what? OK, really, I will stop complaining this time.

Go A’s!!

Sure, I just had a bowl of Fruit Loops and a couple cups of coffee, but with a side of a dominating Rich Harden and the A’s first victory of the 2008 season, it was the best bowl of cereal I’ve ever had.

Harden throwing strikes and missing bats is one of my favorite baseball things to watch. When watching most games, I pay closer attention when the A’s are hitting than when they’re pitching. But when Rich is on the hill, I don’t miss a single pitch.

Even despite his not-so-pretty history against the horror that is David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez back-to-back in Boston’s lineup, he rendered them relatively harmless, even with the Manny home run, as he struck them out three times and surrendered only the one hit.

I’ll consider myself a very privileged A’s fan if we get to see Harden pitch every fifth day on a regular basis. I know that’s asking a lot, but it is my wish of this season.

Emil Brown redeemed himself a little from that baserunning gaffe that cost the A’s Tuesday’s game with his three-run jack off Jon Lester. It’s still something that will be hard to forget though, and he’s going to need to not suck for awhile in order for A’s fans to embrace him as one of their green and gold beloveds.

Daric Barton walked again so he has still gotten on base in every major league games he’s played, despite still waiting on his first hit of ‘08. Kurt Suzuki had a nice game with his 2-for-3, two double, one walk game.

Our boys are heading back home now, and we’ll play a couple more exhibition games before taking on the Red Sox on Tuesday night in Oakland. As for me, I’ll be sleeping in for a few days.

Go A’s!!!

I’m pissed right now, and it feels great.

The glee (Ellis home run! Hannahan home run!) is back, and so is the frustration (Street blown save! Emil Brown… whaaaat?), so that means baseball is officially back. Even though the A’s record now stands at 0-1 and they are the worst team in baseball and a half game behind every team that doesn’t play in Boston, I’m excited.

I really missed my baseball emotions. Sure, it takes a lot of energy (especially so early in the morning) to go through the highs and lows with a team’s success and lack thereof throughout a 162-game (and hopefully more) season, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

And, judging by the way this game went, this year will be a true test of that previous statement.

The A’s RISP woes are back for another long season. They were able to scratch across only two runs with Dice-K laboring his way through the first two innings, and Jack Cust didn’t help at all with his first of four strikeouts of the day coming with the bases loaded.

And Huston Street, a guy the A’s might be looking to move if the price is right, didn’t make a great first impression. 3 ER in 1 2/3 innings - yikes! That’s a 16.20 ERA for our closer!

Joe Blanton looked great for five innings and I was thinking to myself that his trade value may be going up. But a rough sixth led to a no-decision and a mediocre 3 ER, 5 2/3 inning performance.

On the bright side of things, it was great to see Jack Hannahan filling in well at third. I wouldn’t be surprised if he a) plays more games this year than Chavez and b) puts up a higher OPS. And Daric Barton’s OBP is already through the roof with three walks on the day.

I’ll be ready for more tomorrow morning, as we can look forward to a less-hyped pitcher going for Boston in Jon Lester. And hopefully this is the first of Rich Harden’s 32 starts of 2008.

Go A’s!!

It seems fitting that Kurt Suzuki got the last hit of the 2007 season - the hit being a game-winner that secured the A’s finish in 3rd place in the AL West, rather than the cellar.

Because that’s what this year has been about, in looking on the bright side of the Oakland A’s. We’ve got a bright future, led by Suzuki, Travis Buck, and Daric Barton (he homered again today).  We definitely expect that trio to be an integral part of this team in the coming 5+ years, along with Nick Swisher, Dan Haren, and maybe even Joe Blanton.

We’ll have plenty of time in the coming weeks and months to look back, look ahead, and monitor to goings-on of Billy Beane and company, but today I’m just ready to appreciate that, even though this was a diasppointing season for the A’s, good things came out of it and I still love this team with every fiber of my sports fan being. I also appreciate that this final series was not an excruciating do-or-die (hi, Mets fans). It really softened the blow of not playing in October.

So go home and get healthy, A’s. I know I will be going into 2008 with as much excitement as I do any year.

Last night’s 2-0 loss to the Angels didn’t get me very excited about watching the final two games.

John Lackey, a more likely Cy Young candidate than Dan Haren, has to be feeling good about ALDS Game 1 as he blanked the A’s and now sports the AL’s best ERA. Of course, though, the A’s offense isn’t exactly the Red Sox (it’s official folks - that and Cleveland/New York are your ALDS matchups).

So Dan Haren finishes with a 15-9 record and a 3.07 ERA. That still looks pretty good, but not Cy Young good.

Today we get Dallas Braden one more time in ‘07, and he’s just looking for his second win. Yikes.

Go A’s!!