Baseball statisticians love round numbers. Tonight in Oakland, the A’s go for their 20th win in a row against Paul Byrd and the Kansas City Royals.

20 is one of those lovely round baseball numbers.

As fate would have it, Tim Hudson goes to the hill for Oakland. There is no one who better epitomizes the grit of this team than the slender righty.

Not possessed of the smoothness on the mound of Mulder orZito, or the compact delivery of Cory Lidle, the high energy, full throttle every pitch Hudson gets the most out of his ability and is the spiritual and vocal leader of this team.

After the A’s won Sunday, the home plate umpire Steve Ripley had words with Hudson during the celebration. Hudson, who had been vehemently objecting to the missed calls by the veteran umpire in the ninth inning didn’t back down, but it should be interesting to see what kind of strike zone he gets tonight from the umpire.

What about the rest of the West? Click below. [Read more →]

I’ve seen some amazing baseball moments watching baseball for almost 50 years, but this winning streak by the A’s, now 19 games, has really opened my eyes as to how difficult it is to win a baseball game.

Everything has to go right. The game changes every day, controlled by that day’s starting pitcher, one bad inning can ruin the game, one mistimed fielding mistake or base running blunder can sink the team that game. Clutch hits are needed routinely, the bull pen, especially the closer, must come through time and again.

And to do it over the course of 19 straight games is simply unbelievable. I don’t care who you beat, this is the major leagues. It is not easy, in fact a streak like this happens once every fifty years or so.

They will nail number 20 Wednesday night behind Tim Hudson.

Now the reality check. The A’s are up by four games on Anaheim and six on Seattle with 24 left to play, with twenty of those games in the West, where the A’s are a pedestrian 19-19.

They ain’t won nothin’ yet. Now the race is on, every game counts. The pressure is on. The streak is secondary to the job at hand.

Here’s what I think. [Read more →]

The Athletics won their seventeenth in a row Saturday night, beating the stubborn Minnesota Twins 6-3.

The A’s can break the franchise record which has stood since 1931 if Mark Mulder can beat Joe Mays on Sunday.

Can 20 in a row be far off? After Mulder on Sunday, comes Zito on Monday against Runelvys Hernandez and KC, then Tim Hudson on Wednesday against Paul Byrd.

The Cards win a big twin bill, the slide continues for Seattle and Anaheim keeps pace with the A’s.

Boston’s bull pen coughed up another game and the Dodgers, behind lifesaver Omar Daal beat Houston.

Here’s more. [Read more →]

An amazing baseball story is taking place in Oakland, the A’s have won sixteen games in a row, one off the all time franchise record of seventeen, set by the ’31 Athletics.

The A’s and Twins played like it was the playoffs Friday night.

Art Howe, the master chef, of the A’s magnificent baseball season, pulled Tim Hudson at just the right moment, and brought in lefthanded specialist Ricardo Rincon, who induced pinch hitter Matt LeCroy to hit into an inning ending double play.

Ron Gardenhire pinch hit for Jacques Jones in that critical seventh inning rally with LeCroy, causing a lot of baseball strategists to shake their heads in disbelief.

Why take Jones out? Even as a lefthanded hitter, Jones has a chance to hurt Rincon, plus it was only the seventh inning.

These two teams may meet in the first round of the AL playoffs, if so, it will be quite a competitive series with the A’s holding a huge edge in experience.

It showed last night.

The Giants beat Arizona, more on that below.

[Read more →]

Let’s all breathe a sigh of relief.

Reason and logic prevailed.

The Dish will return Saturday.

Detroit Tiger pitcher from the 30’s and 40’s Elden Auker will be my guest on Right Off The Bat tonight at 5:50 PM right here on loveofthegameproductions.com, the A’s web site, and KFRC 610 AM in Northern California. Elden Auker pitched in two world series, 1934 and 35 and is a great interview. I’m looking forward to talking with him. [Read more →]

Barry Zito did what he does best, win ball games. The A’s won their fifteenth in a row and moved 4 1/2 games ahead of the Mariners and 4 ahead of Anaheim.

The Twins and Mariners play Thursday with lefty Jamie Moyer, the best the Mariners have on the hill, matching up with tricky Rick Reed.

The Mariners don’t hit and the Angels are wilting under the weight of injuries and a tired bull pen. All parts of the game that the A’s are immune to right now.

The Angels play the pesky Devil Rays. Tanyon Sturtze who looked like a good bet for 20 losses two weeks ago all of a sudden is 3-13. Kevin Appier needs to give his team eight innings, the Anaheim bull pen is running on fumes, blowing the lead and the game Wednesday night to Tampa Bay 8-5 in ten painful innings.

The Giants try to sweep the Rockies behind Livan Hernandez. With Mike Hampton on the mound for the Rocks, get out the calculator to add up the runs that will be scored Thursday in Coors Field.

And Bud is in NY. I’ll look at his dilemma.

Click below for the true story. [Read more →]

Barry Zito versus Shawn Sedlacek, is there any doubt as to whether or not the A’s end the road trip 10-0 and with a new Oakland consecutive game win streak at 15?

The A’s are on an amazing roll for the second time this year, they did this to the NL in June, too.

The gap is widening between Oakland and the Angels and Mariners. More importantly the A’s are building a cushion, just in case they slip once the win streak ends.

With 29 games to go, you tell me which pitchers left on the schedule will be favored to beat this team. Maybe seven or eight, simply because they will be road games for Oakland.

Who are they, click below and let’s see. [Read more →]

Last year the Mariners swept through the American league with such regularity that the A’s would look at the scoreboard and ask “when are these guys going to lose a game?”

This year the A’s are sweeping through the weak sisters of the AL and NL enroute to a 39-10 mark against those patsies.

It is hard to imagine KC jumping up either tonight or tomorrow to beat Mark Mulder or Barry Zito, meaning the A’s should end this road trip with 15 straight wins.

The Angels bull pen wilted under the stars in Fenway, blowing a 9-5 lead in the ninth inning when Troy Percival, who couldn’t throw the ball past Rey Sanchez when it counted, gave up a two out single to the second baseman to tie the game.

The Giants picked up a game on the Dodgers, while the Cards, Astros and Mariners were idle.

Today is more of the same, bull pen collapses and late game comebacks, for sure.

Remember it’s the Dog Days. [Read more →]

The Giants need to root for the Diamondbacks as crazy as that sounds because the Dodgers face Arizona three times, while the Giants are in Colorado for four games.

The key for teams trailing the leaders by more than three or four games is not to slip back in to the six or seven range because that means you have to sweep a series to get back into the race and that is tough to do in September.

The A’s get one more crack at the dregs of the Central before returning home to the Twins on Friday.

Boston needs a win today, Seattle gets a day off, and the Yankees face Kenny Rogers in Rogers’ house of horrors, Yankee Stadium.

Let’s see what else is up.

[Read more →]

Friday night saw the A’s take over sole possession of first place in the West as Barry Zito won his eighteenth game.

More importantly, the Mariners let one get away in Cleveland, the Angels ran into the best pitcher in baseball, Pedro Martinez, and the Red Sox look like they may have some life left in them after all.

Expos manager Frank Robinson brought back the squeeze play to beat the Giants, the Dodgers dodged another bullet in LA, and the Cards continue to give hope to the Astros.

Saturday poses a challenge for the losers last night to turn things around.

[Read more →]