Rise and shine-- it's another day of September A's baseball!

...meaning, of course, that the A's lost, but so did the Angels, so our magic number is down to 14.

And in case you hadn't heard, Frank Thomas has now homered in six straight games.

Frank Thomas has set the A's franchise record for consecutive games with a home run, and is closing in on the major-league mark:

Dale Long, 1956: 8
Don Mattingly, 1987: 8
Ken Griffey Jr, 1993: 8
Frank Thomas, 2006: 6

Also, from the same link, Jason Kendall has been playing with words and superglue:

Kendall was behind the plate Monday despite taking a broken bat off the noggin the night before.

"It felt like somebody cold-clocked me," Kendall said.

The flying barrel hit Kendall so hard, the foam pad on the inside of his helmet gauged an inch-long cut on his head, so he was taken to a hospital for repairs. He didn't need stitches, though.

"They basically super-glued me back together," said Kendall, who has caught a season-high 22 games in row. "I have a hard head."

Kendall tries to downplay it, but trainer Larry Davis estimates Kendall has had four or five concussions in his career, which is a concern, especially considering that Giants catcher Mike Matheny had his season ended by too many blows to the head.

"You play addition games with him, give him words to remember," Davis said. "He's fine today."

Davis saying "he's fine today"? Right. So how long till the funeral?

Speaking of funerals, apparently Rich Harden isn't dead quite yet. And he's even throwing changeups!

"He looked OK," pitching coach Curt Young said. "He came out of it healthy and was able to throw two simulated innings, 42 total pitches."

Among those pitches, Harden threw a handful of changeups for the first time since he sustained the injury throwing that pitch in early June.

A's at Twins tonight, 5:10 p.m. Pacific time. Be sure to watch the A's in their house of horrors and chronicle all the ups and downs in the game thread, so I can read about all the emotional turmoil you go through without actually having to experience it myself. Here's hoping the A's actually, you know, win a game in the Dome, as strange of a concept as that is.

Dump away!