Ah to be young and unsung.
Marco Scutaro has become the A's hero in the young season. He hit a home run to help the A's overcome the Angels 7-6 on April 17. A day earlier it was Scutaro's bunt and subsequent Scot Shields throwing error that let Nick Swisher make the 90-yard dash from first base to score the winning run. His single on April 22 was crucial for the A's to come back and beat the Angels and Goggle Rodriguez. And then today, Scoot came through with the game winning hit to score Erubiel Durazo.
Bottom line, whenever the A's seem to be in the thick of a rally late in the game, Scutaro has been there.
This is really good news because it means that players like Jason Kendall, Eric Chavez and Erubiel Durazo haven't done it.
Why is this good news, you ask? The A's are approaching their stated goal of being at .500 at the end of April. There's still two games to go, but they are pretty close to where they've said they'd like to be.
And they've done it without any reasonable offensive performance from any of the heart of the order.
Yeah, this may be the pollyannic A's fan coming out in me. But my fandom and my passion for this team is what I have.
What do I have to be concerned about?
- Can the pen keep up this performance? Outside of Juan Cruz, the majority of the pen has come through when called on. Will Dotel continue to be somewhat automatic? Will the league catch up to Street? Is Calero going to last the season with his elbow?
- The A's are getting run all over. The opposition has attempted to steal bases 25 times when Jason Kendall was behind the dish. 22 times they have been successful. I'm not going to sit here and put the blame solely on Kendall, especially when our pitchers have a nearly impossible time of holding runners close. But this could be key to the A's losing several close games throughout the season. Let's hope it doesn't.
- The upcoming roster shuffle. Somewhere in the near future, Bobby Crosby will be coming back into the fray. What will happen with Marco, Ellis and the rest of the middle infield? Will Ginter be traded to a team in need of middle infield help?
That's what I've learned through the first 22 games of the season.
What have you learned?
A couple of sidenotes:
Mychael Urban is hosting a book signing on Sunday at the A's game at the West Side Club. You don't need to buy a book to have your copy of Aces signed. The signing is from 12:30 to 1:30 and make sure you tell him AN sent you.
The other thing is that we've officially secured the BBQ Plaza for August 13. The A's are mailing the tickets out to me shortly. I will then organize them and mail them out to those of you who ordered early. I'll give details later on how to buy tickets so you can join us for AN Day II.
