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.

San Francisco closed to within one game of the Dodgers by hanging on to beat Arizona.

Robb Nen not quite as sharp as he usually is, had enough on his slider to strike out Matt Williams with the winning run on second base and two out in the ninth.

Tonight the Giants must face Curt Schilling in a game which could nail down the NL Cy Young for Schilling, if he dominates the Giants who have won six in a row.

Heck, the Bay Area hasn’t lost a baseball game since the Giants were beaten by Montreal last Saturday.

Houston is rolling, at least for a couple of days. Tonight the Dodgers throw Omar Daal against the Astros Kirk Saarloos. Daal pitched well his last time out and is better than the Houston rookie. LA gets back on the winning side today.

Seattle is hurting as Freddy Garcia loses again. With their big horse a shadow of his former self on the mound, Lou Pinella has to be worried.

Still with many games to go before real panic sets in, the Mariners are setting themselves up for a scenario of having to see someone sweep Oakalnd in order to get this team back in the division race. Seattle is not hitting, not big news, I’ve been saying this since May, so Lou Pinella can only sit back and wait for the bats to come around. John Olerud has a sore groin, Ruben Sierra is hurting, and Mike Cameron got picked off three times this week.

Not a good scenario for Lou’s team.

Tonight Ryan Franklin comes out of the bull pen to try to beat KC. Miguel Asencio is capable of keeping the game close. Doesn’t sound promising for Seattle.

John Burkett who stinks lately goes against Cleveland. Boston better hit because the opinionated Burkett will give up some runs.

Anaheim is one tough team. I see Anaheim staying in until the end, possibly fighting Boston for the wild card, if not challenging the A’s.

Ramon Ortiz who can give up the long ball quickly, matches up with Scott Erickson who has bounced back from his bull pen exile. Brendan Donnelly is saving the Anaheim pen right now. They’ll need some relief help tonight from someone, the end of the Angel games is getting very tense.

Cory Lidle versus Kyle Lohse, arguably the hottest pitchers on both teams. Over 40,000 should be in Oakland to see another evening of playoff baseball. The place was electric last night. The A’s may win 20 straight before losing again.

Luther Hackman and Andy Benes will try to keep the Cubs in check at Wrigley. How does St. Louis stay on top in the NL Central? What character this team has. The Cards may be the best story in the NL if they hang on, which is no lock.

This is a year of team achievements which get more exciting each day.

There is absolutely nothing in sports to match a pennant race in September.

It started August 30th.