Podcast: Winning Streak! Dingers!

Athletics Nation, put away your reading glasses! You won't need those specs to get your A's news today, because we have it for you in podcast form.

With Oakland riding a 7-game winning streak (now 8, after this show was recorded), Phil and I identify some key hitters including Coco Crisp, Jed Lowrie, Seth Smith, and Brandon Moss, as well as steady starting pitchers A.J. Griffin and Bartolo Colon. We also discuss how Oakland's roster depth has already come into play, as well as Billy Beane's ability to find undervalued players. Finally, we take a quick peak at the upcoming homestand against Detroit and Houston. I wrap it all up with a homerific statement about Lowrie - hey, I'm allowed one stupid prediction when my team is 8-2 in April.

Link

I'm leading off this week, so you can just let it play from the start. Or, if you hate baseball and happiness, you can skip through the John Fogerty song, straight to my segment; it starts at 4:30 and goes for about 17 minutes (it's a bit longer this week).

I will leave you with a list of statistical categories in which the A's currently lead the Majors. Hope you enjoy the show this week; be sure to throw some feedback in the comments!

Entering Friday, having played 10 games, the Oakland A's lead the Majors in:

- Wins, 8 (tied w/ Atlanta)
- Run Differential, +33 (Atlanta is 2nd with +26)
- Runs, 66 (St. Louis is 2nd with 56, in only 9 games played)
- Home runs, 18 (5 teams tied with 15, including the Yankees, who have only played 8 games)
- Hits, 103 (Detroit is 2nd with 100, in only 9 games played)
- Doubles, 26 (Kansas City and Arizona tied with 22, in 9 games each)
- Slugging Percentage, .524 (Yankees are 2nd with .505)
- OPS, .892 (Yankees 2nd, .856)
- Total Bases, 185 (Arizona, 153 in 9 games)
- Walks, 39 (Seattle and Arizona tied with 37)
- Quality Starts, 7 (tied with Dodgers, and 4 teams tied with 6)
- American League ERA, 2.90 (Texas is 2nd at 2.93; Braves and Dodgers are better in NL)

...and 2nd in OBP (.368, behind Detroit) and stolen bases (8, behind Philly), and 26th in strikeouts with only 57 (as in, Oakland's hitters have 5th-fewest K's).

Let's. Go. Oakland.