anyway. The front office also probably took into account the A’s home/road split at the all star break.

I do think that the Harden trade sucked the life out of the team. It also depleted them of a pitcher who could singlehandly stop losing streaks (this one is becoming epic…16 of 18).

We know they are not talented but to lose 16 or 18 also shows they don’t give a flying fuck.

The worst thing that happened is Crosby hitting a home run. Had Barton, or CarGon or Kurt hit it fine but Crosby just earned himself more playing time. For the well being and future of the team it is important that players get weeded out and he is one that needs to be gone.

It has already been said but bring more youngsters up and let them learn on the job. I guess they will in September so we may have to wait.

But losing 16 of 18 is simply pathetic and the whole team should be embarrassed.

The pitching was not going to remain as strong as it was. A lot of the pitchers had peripherals that suggested ERAs a full run or more worse going forward. I expected the offense to rebound a little bit, and I’ve been seriously disappointed by its performance of late, but I did not expect that rebound to do more than slightly mitigate the negative effects of the pitching regression.

Beane was right to “complete the rebuild,” because this team simply was not capable of making up a 6-game deficit in the standings over less than half a season.

As bad as the A’s were at the plate, both this year and last, in both seasons the team really hit with a thud only when Billy traded away at a key player right at the deadline. Last year it was Milton Bradley (boy, I’m sure glad that guy isn’t mucking up the middle of the A’s lineup …) and this year Harden. The dispiriting thing is the sense that BIlly’s motives for moving these guys remains somewhat of a mystery. For Milton the A’s essentially got nothing, and for Gaudin they got Gallagher … with Harden thrown in, even though it seems quite likely that the A’s could have gotten much, much more had they simply asked Harden to go out and give them a few good starts so they could move him to a first place club.

It’s true that doesn’t explain the horrible-ness of the offense. But if when you show up for work tomorrow the boss says, “you know, you suck, I’m quitting on you and terminating the project that you’d been running that, against all odds, had been going pretty well. However, I want you to stick around long enough to train your replacements…” After that doozy of a motivational speech, what kind of productivity do you think you’d provide the rest of the week?