A's Brand Baseball: Down The Stretch They Go
In May, while the A's struggled along 8 1/2 games behind Los Los Angeles Angeles de Anaheim Anaheim in the American League West, A's Brand Baseball promised not to mention the division standings any more until school started in the fall. It was hard to imagine, back then, that the A's would be playing meaningful games when schoolkids were buying pencil boxes and new backpacks, but here's this (Go Bears!), and here's this. After the first week of school and two disappointing, if hard-fought, losses in three games in the O.C. this week, the A's are tied with Los Los Angeles Angeles for first place. That's right, first place: 75-58. That's the same record as the Yankees, in a three-way tie for the AL wild card spot in the playoffs.
The A's have 29 games left on their schedule. If they win 16 of them, they will have outperformed last year's squad, which, lest we forget, had guys named Hudson, Mulder, Dotel and Durazo. If they win 20 of those 29 games--which include 3 against the Yankees, 3 against the Indians (1 game back in the Wild Card standings), 3 against Boston (3 1/2 games up on the Yankees in the East and so very much a part of the Wild Card picture) and 4 at home against Los Los Angeles Angeles at the end of September--we expect the A's to make the playoffs.
None of that will be easy, because they'll play some, if not all of those games, without Bobby Crosby, who's on the 15-day DL with a broken ankle, without Mark Kotsay, whose back is acting up again, and without Rich Harden, whose strained lat muscle (oh, what it must be like having lat muscles to strain) has cost him 2 starts. Marco Scutaro, Jay Payton and Joe Kennedy have all filled in admirably at shortstop, in centerfield and in two spot starts, respectively, but it's nice to have starters at those positions, and batting second (Kotsay) and third (Crosby). Without them, the A's scored three runs in three games this week, which is not the kind of thing that's going to carry the team past its regular-season finale at Sea-Tac October 2.
So, these are tense times on 66th Ave. The A's are playing a 29-game season, and it starts when they return home Friday night for six games against the Yankees and Mariners. The Yankees are the Yankees, for all their early-season woes, and reports of their demise have been greatly exaggerated, but they will nevertheless send Al Leiter, someone named Aaron Small and Shawn Chacon to the mound over the next three nights; they are eminently beatable. We heard "Let's Go Oak-land" loud and clear over the Thundersticks on the radio broadcasts from Disneyland all week, and we would have been embarrassed for fans of the home team, if only we believed in such things. This weekend, we hope the home crowd overpowers the Yankee fans in the Coliseum--without any stupid Thundersticks.
This weekend, we can boo Derek Jeter, laugh at Tony Womack, wave dollar bills at Alex Rodriguez and, especially, Jason Giambi, and hope that Mariano Rivera never leaves the bullpen. We can rock green and gold and chew our nails all month; we can blow off our weekend plans so we can catch the games. Most importantly, and most surprisingly for those of you who've been with us all year, we can talk about the playoffs. Friday night's game is at 7:05, on FSN and KFRC-610: Haren (11-10, 3.99) against the ghost of Al Leiter (7-10, 5.75). Go A's.