Yes, everything lately is coming up roses. Tomorrow, King Richard Harden rejoins the A's.
As for tonight, it was all about Dan "The Man" Haren. Again, he controlled the zone. Six strikeouts and only one walk. Even better, he lowered his ERA under 4.00 (where's the Ratto column on the Mulder trade? Ray, talk to me, man.). He also saved the pen with an eight-inning gem. Haren is turning into quite a pitcher. You throw in Calero's inning and this was a Mark Mulder complete gamer. Daric Barton's OBP is also back up to .417 and he hit a couple more bombs recently, for the record. He's also third on the Ports in RBIs. At 19.
But back to the game. The A's came through with, dare I mention it, gasp, clutch hitting. First Kielty's bomb and then Kotsay came through with a bomb of his own.
Beating Aaron Sele right now was not an easy task. But our young offense is coming around. Something to note...over the past thirty days, our Oakland Athletics have the same number of home runs as the mighty power offense of the St. Louis Cardinals. That's 22 home runs. The team slugging percentage has still been rather dreadful, but the A's are slowly but surely inching their way out of that hitting funk.
Swisher also broke loose tonight. The A's need the kid to be hammering that ball to all fields. He did just that.
If Blanton continues to remain consistent, Haren seems to arrived (not that he won't have a bad outing here and there), Harden is now back and Z is pitching much better.
Some interesting decisions await the A's over the next month or so. When do you decide whether or not to give up on the season and build for the future? Is it too soon? Could the A's really climb back in this while staring up at the three teams above them? Can you build toward the future while remaining contenders today? Why is Mountain Dew red and purple and orange now? Wasn't green enough? These are the questions that plague me.
I imagine a certain person in the A's front office had this figured out long ago.
But enjoy it while it lasts. Our boys are playing better and have become much more entertaining recently. Sometimes you've gotta stop and smell...ah, nevermind.
