Here's todays sports news more ›

>This post may be a day late, but it's definately not a dollar short as A's contributor Christy takes a look at the A's catchers and Designated Hitters. Coming next, outfield and pitchers. more ›

Here's todays sports news more ›

Here's todays wrapup of sports news more ›

Here's todays rounup of sports news. more ›

The A’s starting catcher is the very definition of ‘light-hitter’; rarely does he get a hit greater than a double, and in his career with the A’s, he’s only managed one homerun, which barely cleared the fence, at that. Despite his obvious lack of power, Kendall is a very consistent hitter, and has one of the lowest strikeout rates in the whole league. Expect his season numbers to echo last year’s; he won’t have more than one or two homeruns, but he should hit right around .300. Kendall started 143 games under Ken Macha, but Bob Geren has strongly hinted at getting Adam Melhuse some more playing time, so we may well expect this number to drop slightly. As for Kendall’s defense, his numbers have improved slightly during the last year, but A’s fans would not mind if he threw out a higher percentage of runners. But if you’re looking for a catcher to take the big hits, while making the flashy plays at the plate, there’s no one better. more ›

A's 7, Indians 4- Rich Harden looked sharp in his first start in 3 1/2 months and Jason Kendall had three hits as the A's beat the Indians again. Your magic number is 4 with the Angels coming to town for a three game series. It's pretty simple, actually-- all the A's have to do is take two and champagne will be spilled at home. No scoreboard watching, no waiting around. Destiny, as they say, is for the taking. Oh yeah, Oaktown, get ready with some Montel Jordan cause you better be ready to party. more ›

SFist As fans' loss is our personal gain, as SFist Jake's brief hiatus gives us leave to post on yesterday's sixth-inning infield brawl at Anaheim! We love a good baseball fight. That's because the very first baseball game we ever watched was the one where Nolan Ryan put that dude who rushed the mound in a headlock and pounded the crap out of him. Ah, memories. Anyways, we have no idea what's going on in the season or anything that happened in the game last night beyond what we saw on the news last night (Chavvy hit a homer, As won), but we can tellyou that in the sixth, As catcher Jason Kendall, up at bat, thought Angels pitcher John Lackey was taunting him about getting intentionally beaned for walks, and ran straight at him. Two Angels grabbed Kendall, who nevertheless managed to take Lackey down before both teams raced onto the field, for our slo-mo TiVo delight. Video here. This is the first bench-clearer for the As since 1993 in Milwaukee (while the Angels got in their last big fight in 2002 against San Diego, in spring training.) This is Kendall's second time charging the mound, too -- in 2004, Kendall went after (now-teammate -- awkward!) Joe Kennedy when Kennedy was at Colorado and Kendall was with Pittsburg. Did any of that even make sense? Don't worry, folks, SFist Jake will be back soon. more ›

A large portion of Western literature doesn't make sense to California kids. Specifically, we don't get all those poems about springtime, because it just doesn't feel like that big a deal. This is not to say that "there are no seasons in California." Rather, we mean that spring is nice, sure, but so are summer and fall, and Indian summer, and hey, winter isn't really that bad, either. There seem to be more poems about one season than it really warrants, is all. more ›

We come to exhume Ken Macha--still, no praise. more ›

Some might suggest that the A’s only took two of three at the Coliseum this week from the of-all-things-still-major-league-leading Chicago White Sox because the Sox played two games like a Little League team whose coach missed the draft. They would probably go on to suggest that the two wins, which evened the home team’s record out at 11-11, don’t mean much with respect to its April slide, because again: major league baseball players aren’t going to give up that many games on errors at shortstop. The White Sox managed to drop two in a row in exactly that fashion, though, opening the door for eighth-inning heroics from Jason Kendall on Tuesday and an RBI single in the bottom of the ninth for Marco Scutaro, SFist’s utility infielder of the month, on Wednesday. more ›

Sunday night, the A’s finished a 3-4 road trip with a frustrating 0-1 loss to Los Los Angeles Angeles de Anaheim Anaheim. Joe Blanton pitched the first complete game of his career, giving up 6 hits and a run and making everyone who hyped him going into this season look good, but the offense didn’t bring in the two runs it would have taken to win the game. more ›

Before a disappointingly small, but vocal and ultimately happy crowd at the Coliseum Wednesday night, the A's fought off a series sweep at the talons of the Toronto Blue Jays. Nick Swisher led the way with two hits, one of which was a monster home run to rightfield, and Jason Kendall, whose bat may have finally arrived from Pittsburgh, added two hits and two RBI of his own. Joe Blanton went six innings and gave up three hits and a run, maintaining the excellent starting pitching the A's have seen this season: if you're keeping score, or counting on SFist to do it for you, that's two good starts each for Blanton and Haren, and one apiece for Saarloos and Harden. And although Huston Street gave up the first run of his career -- and Octavio Dotel, maddeningly enough, his first of this season -- to give Blanton's win to Kiko Calero, the bullpen continues to impress. more ›

It should be noted that the Giants, as indicated yesterday, have indeed locked up Armando Benitez to a three year deal. Also, the A's recieved catcher Jason Kendall in a trade with the Pirates. While SFist is an avowed Giants fan (insert Athletics supporter joke here), it must be admitted that picking up Kendall is a pretty cool move and that the A's will be better and more interesting because of it. more ›