I know, I know, people hate it when there is premature speculation (isn't there a pill for that these days?).  But I'm wondering if the A's might've made a mistake in picking up Frank Thomas.  The reason?  I'm thinking that Mike Sweeney is just a better hitter right now and Thomas' presence has put Sweeney on the bench.  Not only that, but perhaps Barry Bonds would've been the better fit because he can probably still play left field whereas Frank Thomas has no business being anywhere close to a glove.

Now before you all lash out at me, I understand that Bonds would've cost a lot more money and if all the media reports about Bonds are to be believed, he wouldn't have added much positive energy to the clubhouse.  Bonds also would've created a similar situation that the A's have now with Cust, Sweeney, Barton and Thomas.  They essentially have four designated hitters and two of them need to be in the field every night and one of them rides the pine.

If you look at their stats, Sweeney has been the better hitter this year.  I think one of the major reasons Beane picked up Thomas was his plucky young A's weren't getting pop from anywhere and if Thomas has proven anything throughout his career, it's that the guy knows how to slug with the best in baseball.  The problem is that he hasn't been slugging at all for the A's.  He only has four extra base hits in 60 ABs and none of them have left the park.  The chances are that this is probably a small sample size, but I'm wondering if Thomas is a better hitter overall at this stage in his career.  Both Sweeney and Thomas are .300 hitters for their careers.  Yet Thomas is going to be 40 on May 27th.  Sweeney turns 35 in July. 

Thomas may be a statistical aberration and not be declining as he hits his big 4-0 a la Bonds, but for how good he was with Toronto last season, he wasn't anywhere near as good as 2006 with Oakland.

Don't get me wrong.  I don't blame Beane and company for taking a chance on a hitter with the credentials of Bonds.  Hell, I even advocated for Thomas when he was sitting out there.  But I just can't help but think that Mike Sweeney should be in the lineup every night unless he's injured (which might not take long given his past history).  The other option would be to possibly send Daric Barton down and let Sweeney play first every day.  The problem with that is that you're asking for an injury to Sweeney by taking that approach.  I also think that Barton's growth could be getting stunted by not having him out there every night.

Beane has told me several times that you can never have too many good players, but the truth is that I don't think the A's are getting the best out of what they have because they have too many players who probably should be a DH.  And you just know that Thomas is rarely, if ever, going to wind up sitting out because of the way he exited Toronto. 

Although the issue will arise this upcoming weekend when the A's head into Atlanta.  They're going to lose Thomas' bat all weekend without the DH.

Course this all goes away and I look like a fool if Thomas just starts hitting homers and doubles with regularity.  And quite frankly, I'm hoping he makes me look like a fool.

The A's win against the O's tonight 2-1 in the bottom of the 10th inning on Emil Brown's RBI single to center field.  The game went to the 10th inning on a blown save from Huston Street after a brilliantly pitched game by A's starter Dana Eveland.

So on a night when two MLB Davids faced off against one another, it was the guy that many A's fans didn't even want on the team in the first place who was the star of the game offensively.  Emil Brown scored the run to give the A's the lead and more importantly, wound up with the big single to plate Daric Barton to win the game for the A's.

This game was amazing in many ways and it's sad that so few people are showing up to watch this team play baseball.  They say baseball can be a game of inches, well consider all that happened this evening and dare to argue otherwise:

• Early in the game, both Mike Sweeney and Frank Thomas both looked like they hit home runs but the heavy Oakland night air knocked both balls down.
• Jack Cust got four strikes in an at-bat on a mistake by home plate umpire Ed Hickox, who also had one of those wild, completely unpredictable strike zones that led to Mark Ellis nearly being thrown out for arguing a called third strike (Bob Geren jumped in and saved Ellis from being tossed by a millisecond).
• In the seventh inning, Emil Brown just barely avoided getting doubled off second base on a Crosby fly out to center field.  He wound up scoring the only run for the A's in the first nine innings on two infield hits by Jack Hannahan and Rajai Davis.
• The top of the eighth the Orioles came so close to tying the game but an excellent play by Ryan Sweeney calling off Mark Ellis on a pop up that would've scored Adam Jones from third had Ellis caught it while moving back into the outfield.  Nick Markakis then grounded to Crosby to end the Orioles threat.  The infield hit by Payton that inning was questionable as to whether Payton was safe or not.  But as I said, this was a game of inches.
  
• Ramon Hernandez wound up tying the game for the Orioles in the top of the ninth with a ball to Bobby Crosby that could've possibly gone home had Kurt Suzuki stepped out from behind the plate and given Croz that option.  For some reason, Kurt seemed to concede that run. 
  
• In the bottom of the ninth, Brown nearly had another A's infield hit to lead off the inning when a ball rolled up the third base line and rolled foul by less than an inch and stopped.  Brown still walked, but the A's couldn't get him home.

You could not ask for better pitching from Dana Eveland than the A's got tonight.  The guy pitched brilliantly, rebounding from his tough outing against the Angels.  He was great in pounding the zone and working the home plate umpire's wild zone.  It's too bad that it was all for nothing.

The A's pen was once again great tonight, outside of Street and like I said in the comments, I thought Huston had a couple of bogus calls against him in the Melvin Mora AB, which turned into the tying run.  Street looked like he hit the outside corner on Mora twice but didn't get the call and that's when you could tell that both him and Suzuki were trying to figure out what to throw.  Street isn't the overpowering guy that some closers are and he needs that outside corner in order to be effective.

But Eveland, Devine, Embree and Brown were all good enough tonight to get the A's the win thanks to a little help from Clutchy McClutch (Emil).

By the way, I've got to admit that I got a few goosebumps in watching Chad Bradford strike out Daric Barton with that frisbee slider of his.  It reminded me of good times in the green and gold and he was always one of my very favorite A's pitchers back in the day.  It's one of the few moments that I've ever smiled when an A's player struck out.

The A's super duper funkalicious all-righty lineup wasn't nearly as interesting as I had hoped as Garrett Olson kept them pretty much off balance all night.  He kind of reminded me of hybrid of Greg Smith and Young Barry Zito (not the abomination that pitches for the Giants now).  He's a tough good young pitcher.  But I'm not sure how effective this all righty lineup is.  They don't seem to be fairing all that well against lefties.  Or at least as good as I'd like.

Ultimately, in a matchup of two Davids, it was fitting that Emil Brown, ManGod, was the one who chucked the heaviest stone.

For all the close games the A's and Angels have played over the last few years, tonight was the rare exception.  The A's blasted the hated Angels 14-2 with Emil Brown and Daric Barton leading the way with home runs and three RBIs a piece.  Frank Thomas also was a home run short of the cycle.  Chad Gaudin pitched through a rough strike zone and held the Angels to only two runs.

Let me get this out of the way right off the bat.  Yes, Frank Thomas hit a triple in the first inning and Jack Cust had an infield hit.  If that doesn't tell you that things have been breaking the A's way of late then nothing will.  Thomas might've had a shot at the cycle had Bob Geren not put a pinch runner in at the bottom of the seventh when he led off with a double.  The thing is, the game was actually still a game at that point because it was still 6-2 and despite Thomas' new found wheels that earned him a triple earlier in the game, I would want the extra insurance run if we can get it. 

Emil Brown decided to eliminate that by starting the pain train on Chris Bootcheck, who got the check booted out of him.  The A's started the Bugs Bunny style conga line going around the bases with Bootcheck.  But the game was probably decided earlier.  Home plate umpire Charlie Reliford had one of the most baffling strike zones I've seen in a while.  And apparently Angels pitching coach Mike Butcher agreed as he got thrown out after Frank Thomas walked in the third inning.  The funny thing is that Gaudin had to deal with the same weird strike zone and he worked through it.  Is there ever a game when Mike Scioscia doesn't complain about something?  The Angels announcers were blaming the loss on the Angels tough travel schedule about having to come home from Detroit last night late and play the A's today.  Of course, no credit given to these anonymous A's.  That's fine.  Keep dissing this team.  They love it that way.

I'm hoping Frank Thomas is now coming out of it with three hits tonight.  That's his first triple since 2002 and Mulder, Hudson and Zito were still Athletics.  That seems so long ago.  Also, Daric Barton hits his first home run of the season and I thought the reason he did was because he was patient with the baffling strike zone.  He essentially forced Garland to come in with an easy pitch right down the middle.

And finally, props to Vacafan who called Emil Brown's home run.  Dude, are you getting an Emil tat or what? 

This was one sweet night.