Fatrolf’s MONDAY Sketches: Jolly Gents Jaunt Joyously in Jovial Jubilee edition

This past week has been an outright battle between the A’s and Astros, chomping at each other’s heels for rights to the first place spot in the AL West. The A’s fought hard to surpass the leader, but Houston wouldn’t relinquish their grip on the throne. One and a half games separate the two teams, but with a three game stretch in toasty Texas starting up today, things are about to get a little more heated.

While the A’s didn’t have any luck at topping Houston, Khris Davis has been slugging on to his own place at number one.

Khrush cracked his 39th homer on Thursday, finally surpassing Boston’s JD Martinez to claim his spot as sole league leader. Khrush is one shot away from his third consecutive 40+ HR season; all three have been since he was acquired by Oakland.

One of those dingers game about a week ago when the A’s hosted 12 kids from Make-A-Wish Bay Area. Prior to the game, Khrush asked the kid he met with to sign his jersey. He wore 10-year-old Anthony Slocumb’s name on his shoulder the entire night, keeping the kid’s name close as he rounded the bases after hitting his home run. (If you’d like a break here to go get some Kleenex, you’re more than welcome, because I had to)

Who else has been on fire since joining our bunch? Mike Fiers, of course! The 6’2”, 202 lb Florida native has a 1.50 ERA and a 3-0 record in his first four starts for us. He’s only given up three walks, while fanning 28 over just 24 innings pitched. He’s a beast. And best of all, he’s our beast.

Player’s Weekend was fantastic again, with a rowdy bunch of boring high-school-locker-room nicknames and a fair jumble of jovial jokes displayed on the shoulders of baseball’s jolly gents. However, this display of joyousness could not save Manaealator from falling victim to a left shoulder impingement, landing him on the DL for a yet-to-be-disclosed amount of time.

We’ve got Brett Anderson on the mound for today’s continuance of the battle for first. The fight is important for more reasons than one as New York crawls farther and farther away with the first place spot in the Wild Card — they currently stand at 4.5 games over Oakland after a painfully easy four game sweep of the down-and-out Orioles.

Since his call-up on August 3rd, Ramón Laureano has been fantastic, defensively and offensively. Ironically, we originally got him from Houston for Brandon Bailey last November. Thanks, guys! What better time than now for another breakout game or two ... or three ...

Here’s to three games of Laureano defensive mastery, Khrush bombs, and stifling the Astros out of first place on their home turf!