Baseball Historians

It took 11 innings, but Oakland finally beat the Marlins 7-6 with a Suzuki walk-off double.
The game remained scoreless until the fourth inning when the A’s scored three runs, and maintained the lead until the ninth when Florida’s Uggla homered to tie things up at 6-6. With a runner on first and no outs in […]

Well the Giants certainly kept things interesting. Although the team was swept by Oakland in the three-game series (5-1, 4-0, and 5-3), they didn’t allow Oakland to score more than five runs in any game, and struck first in two of the meetings. Unfortunately for the Giants, Oakland never allowed them to have more than […]

After scoring one run in the fourth inning, Oakland couldn’t catch a break against the Yankee pitching. Chien-Ming Wang lasted over seven full innings for his team, giving up just the lone run. His team, however, took the lead right from the start scoring two runs in the first and an insurance run in the […]

This weekend, the Oakland Athletics were ahead of their opponents, the Los Angeles Angels, for half an inning during the entire three game series, including the twelve-inning final game, which Oakland finally won. After scoring only four combined runs in the first two games, and tying the third game 3-3 Oakland was able to rally […]

The A’s were able to bounce back from last week’s many losses with two wins this week, but what does that mean? The team is still three and a half games back in the AL West, and playing the Tigers in the current series, you never know what could happen. And as the season progresses, […]

In the last two games, Oakland has scored four runs. It was fine on Tuesday, when they took the lead in the first and never looked back in the 3-1 win. But on Wednesday, one run just wasn’t enough in their 1-2 loss. Althought the score remained tied for most of the game, Toronto was […]

After beating Tampa 9-1 to avoid a sweep, the Athletics have gained momentum by crushing the Red Sox in their last two games, 8-3 and 3-0. In the latter game, Duchersher went five perfect innings, and his relief only allowed one hit in the game. Things seem to be falling into place and the team […]

Greg Smith gave up four runs in six innings. Not great, but not terrible either. With a little help from the batters, the game might have been won. However, that help never came. The team’s four singles scattered throughout the game somehow just didn’t produce any runs. The teams face each other again tonight at […]

Poor Baltimore. The A’s have been perfect so far this week, including their three-game sweep of the Orioles. I’m not saying it wasn’t close. Oakland won two in the final innings, one being a walk-off homer by Mark Ellis. But in the end, Oakland was able to pull out a victory. Over and over and […]

The A’s are holding their own. The traditionally good team needs to bounce back from last year’s losing season, and so far, they’ve been doing well. With a win last night in Los Angeles, the team is now tied with the Angels for first place in their division.
And it wasn’t just any win; it was […]

The last three games have been big for the A’s. The four-game series with the LA Angels is a huge opportunity to make or break the season thus far. Unfortunately, so far the team has lost two of three games, and is a full game behind. A win tonight would tie the teams’ records, and […]

Close and low-scoring define the games in Oakland’s series against Seattle pretty well. This weekend, Oakland scored a total of 11 runs, compared to Seattle’s 10. In all the three games, (Oakland won the first and third, Seattle the second,) the margin of victory was two runs or less.
Fortunately for the team, the LA Angels […]

After a three-game sweep of the Kansas City Royals, Oakland dropped the first game of their series against the Minnesota Twins this evening in Oakland 5-4.
Joe Blanton was on the mound for Oakland, and lasted well into the eighth inning, when he left the game tied at 4-4, with runners on first and third. He […]

Fifteen hits.
That’s more than the A’s have hit combined in their recent three-game losing streak. That goes for their number of runs scored as well, in the team’s 13-2 win over the Kansas City Royals last night in Oakland.
Last night Oakland seemed to be able to combine strong hitting with  a tough bullpen. Chad Gaudin […]

Oakland was limited to three runs in a two-game series against Seattle.
In all fairness, Felix Hernandez pitched a great game on Wednesday. He lasted nine innings and gave up eight hits and just two runs. Compare that to Oakland’s Joe Blanton, who lasted eight innings, but gave up twelve hits and four runs, including four […]

Daric Barton. Emil Brown. Mike Sweeney. Chris Denorfia. Travis Buck. And Daric Barton again. These are your power hitters, the only ones that could hit off of the Chicago White Sox pitcher John Danks, a man who hasn’t picked up a win since last July. At least these guys put the ball in play; the […]

In his debut pitching for Oakland, the left-handed Smith gave up six hits and one run in seven innings to the Chicago White Sox Monday. Casilla and Embree took care of the eighth inning and Huston Street finished out the tense ninth inning, while Oakland clung to their 2-1 lead.
 On the offensive side, Suzuki went […]

After sweeping the Blue Jays and winning their last two against the Indians, Oakland ended their five game winning streak with a 7-1 loss at Cleveland today. Oakland’s only run came off of a Travis Buck triple, followed by a Mark Ellis infield single in the fourth inning. Two of Oakland’s three hits came in that […]

I said Oakland couldn’t keep winning games in the ninth inning. So instead, they took it to a twelfth in their 3-2 win over Toronto to complete the three-game sweep.
Oakland’s eight hits and Toronto’s 11 just couldn’t be strung together to create any runs, and the teams went eleven innings, each only scoring one […]

I  said yesterday that Oakland couldn’t keep winning close games. Well, they proved me wrong, at least for today. The team was down 0-3 against Toronto from the first inning, and scored four of their six runs in the ninth in their 6-3 victory over the Jays.
Greg Smith, on the mound for Oakland, gave up […]

Oakland was on the bats last night, but so was Toronto. The A’s had thirteen hits, compared to the Blue Jays’ twelve. After a four hit, five run second inning which brought the score to 6-1, it looked like Oakland had things in the bag. The Jays, however, didn’t stop fighting and brought the game […]

Dana Eveland made a stunning debut Saturday for the A’s, giving up just one run in seven innings. Oakland gave up six hits during the entire game, compared the twelve they hit against Cleveland’s C.C. Sabathia.
The next day, however, Oakland couldn’t make the bats come alive. They picked up four hits and one run on […]

If everyone has played like Rich Harden last night, Oakland probably would have won, instead of losing to Boston … again, this time not scoring a single run in the 5-0 loss. Harden pitched five solid innings only giving up four hits, and striking out six batters. With no outs in the first and bases […]

Aside from the ninth inning, when Travis Buck, Mark Ellis, and Daric Barton all failed to even make contact with the ball, the A’s hitting still wasn’t all that great. In fact, the team only had three hits on the night, including Jack Cust’s homerun in the second inning, and singles by Suzuki in the third and […]

Rich Harden did this morning what Huston Street couldn’t seem to do the preceding day -  pitch. Harden pitched six solid innings and only saw 24 batters in that time, and struck out nine in Oakland’s 5-1 victory this morning in Japan. In fact, the only Red Sox run was a solo home-run by Manny […]

Oakland was playing well, and trying to defend a 4-3 lead over the World Champion Red Sox. However, things fell apart for the A’s in the latter innings this morning in Japan.
Reliever Huston Street was credited with the loss, and rightfully so. With a one-run lead, Street gave up a single shot home-run to […]

After losing two of their last three training games, the A’s were able to pull out a 5-2 win over the Cubs Wednesday. This was largely due Oakland’s ability to capitalize off of Chicago’s struggling bullpen. Down 0-2 in the eighth inning, Chicago pitchers Carlos Marmol and Kevin Hart both walked in batters with bases loaded […]

With exactly one week til the first game if Oakland’s 2008 season, the question asked is are they ready? Or, more precisely, are they healthy? It’s no doubt that they have made an impression during spring training, going 15-5 and 5-4 on the road. It’s great that that the team is off to such a […]

The past two years have been very up and down for Rich Harden. He has shown that he is a quality pitcher in the big leauges and can be a solid starter in the MLB, but he has been unable to avoid the injury bug. In the past two season Harden has started only 13 games and pitched a total of 72 1/3 innings. For a pitcher with the talent Harden has, 13 starts is clearly not enough. That is all in the past now and both Harden and the Athletics have high hopes for the 2008 season.
In the beginning weeks of spring […]

The Athletics picked up three more prospects to go with the guys they picked up when they sent Danny Haren to Arizona.  This time is was Moneyballer Nick Swisher who’s sent out of town and in return, the Athletics get pitching prospects Gio Gonzalez and Fautino De Los Santos in addition to outfielder Ryan Sweeney.  […]