Baseball is, like, so weird. A 6-game homestand that included Barry Zito’s first win since last July, Rich Harden’s first major league complete game and the catch of Eric Byrnes's life all sounds good, and the A’s got exactly that this week but still managed to drop 4 of those 6 to Seattle and Texas. This week alone, they went from Z’s W over Seattle in front of 30,634 fans on the kind of Sunday afternoon that the first day of May is all about to a rain-shortened 7-16 loss to Texas Wednesday in front of half that many.

After Tuesday night’s 1-6 defeat, A’s manager Ken Macha returned to his office to find Billy Beane waiting for him. Macha told the Chron it was “an internal matter,” but you just know he stood up the whole time, ballcap in hand, thanked Billy for inviting him to the wedding of his daughter, and wished that her first child would be a masculine child. Sunday, Nick Swisher sprained his right acromio-clavicular joint, which is near his shoulder, and joined Bobby Crosby on the DL. Mark Kotsay, who has been carrying what passes for his team’s offense on his back, missed Wednesday’s game with . . . the flu. Starting Friday, the A’s have 12 games in a row against the Yankees and the Red Sox. You can’t win or lose the pennant in April or May, we guess, but you can get slapped around pretty good trying.

SFist takes its share of the blame: we let the Rangers come and go without telling you to root for North Oakland Little Leaguer, Bishop O’Dowd H.S. Dragon and California Golden Bear Ryan Drese, or against the Rangers’ former owner, their current pitching coach, or a certain psychotic relief pitcher on the DL with what we can only hope is an injury to his chair-throwing shoulder. We promise to do better (oh boy, do we ever) when the Yankees and Red Sox come to town next week.

In the meantime, Don’t Panic. The sun is out, the team is two games below .500 with 134 left to play, and Barry Zito (1-4, 5.84, but we’re telling you, it’s a strong 1-4, 5.84) pitches against Carl Pavano (2-2, 4.24) in Yankee Stadium Friday night. Game time is 4:05, on KICU and KFRC-610. Go A's.