The Oakland Athletics have yet to indicate whether they'll be buyers, sellers or stand pat at this year's trade deadline, but already several players are starting to be linked with other teams. A few players—like Brian Fuentes—are speculated to be on the move no matter what the A's decide to do. With all the various rumors swirling, it's hard to know exactly where a player will land. Here's a prediction for where each Oakland trade candidate will end up. More than two trades at one deadline is rare. This article isn't suggesting all six of these will absolutely take place ...
Since our first checkpoint of the season (when the A's were 19-18), the team has gone 20-24. Does not sound like the best record. But when considering the injuries to Yoenis Cespedes, Bartolo Colon, Brandon McCarthy as well as the designated hitter that never played a single game as a member of this ball club, it could have been much worse.The A's now sit at 39-42, on pace for 78 wins, an improvement over any season in the Bob Geren era. However, there are signs that suggest the A's could potentially be a sleeper team in the second half of the ...
Jarrod Parker's 6.2 solid innings and home runs by Josh Reddick and Brandon Moss paced the A's to a 6-1 victory over the Boston Red Sox in the first game of their three-game series.Parker won his fifth game on the year, allowing a single run on six hits and three walks before Sean Doolittle pitched the final 2.1 innings of shutout relief.The Red Sox jumped on the board quickly with a leadoff double by Daniel Nava and an RBI single by Dustin Pedroia. But Parker induced a double play off of the bat of David Ortiz, and the threat was ...
As the Oakland A’s play their 81st game of the MLB Regular Season against the Boston Red Sox on Monday night, the half-way point of the year, they’re just five games back of the two American League Wild Card spots. This should be seen by every single A’s fan as an overwhelming success. Who figured the A’s would be within a few games of the .500 mark at this point of the regular season? Not many. How many figured they would-be within an earshot of a playoff berth? NOBODY. It’s been the transactions of Billy Beane before and during this ...
When this four-game series began, odds would have been against Travis Blackley being the pitcher most likely to shut down the Texas Rangers' lineup. But that's exactly what happened as he went seven strong innings to help the A's salvage the final game of the series. Blackley was great, allowing a single run on seven hits and striking out three. Most impressively, he did not walk a batter, enabling himself to avoid many stressful situations.After falling behind 1-0, Derek Norris started the rally by scorching a single in the fifth inning off of Yu Darvish to plate Seth Smith and ...
First and foremost, congratulations to Ryan Cook on making the American League All-Star team in 2012. To most Oakland A's fans and even the media, Cook was a throw-in to the trade that shipped out Trevor Cahill and brought in Jarrod Parker. As it turned out, he just might have been the biggest component to swing the deal in Oakland's favor.Do not misunderstand that statement: Jarrod Parker, long-term, has a chance to be the A's ace and could very well be an all-star himself down the line. He is the centerpiece to this trade, but Parker alone would have evened ...
The movie Moneyball opens with Brad Pitt as Billy Beane frustrated over the Athletics' razor-thin loss to the Yankees in the 2001 Division Series.It ends with Beane's frustration at the end of the 2002 season, as he laments the fact that he never won a World Series with this crew of players.First of all, if you are an A's fans, that should not be a "spoiler."But throughout the wonderful run that the Athletics had between 2000 and 2006, they had several innings that did not break their way. In each of these innings, if a ball bounced one way, or ...
Ahead 2-1 in the bottom of the fifth inning, Tom Milone appeared to have an easy first out on a Nelson Cruz grounder to third. Instead, it became the start of a five-run fifth inning as Brandon Inge could not make a play on the ball.The Rangers would ultimately score two runs on Ian Kinsler's single, and then the big moment was Josh Hamilton's 23rd home run, making the score 6-2. Texas would go on to win 7-2, now one game away from a four-game sweep in the series. The A's continued to see promise from Chris Carter, who went 2-for-4, ...
Understand, I am a bit biased about this topic, but it is time for GM Billy Beane to decide once and for all if Chris Carter is a viable option at first base for the Oakland A's.There is no point in having a guy with Carter's power languish in the minors any more. He will be 26 in December, so the idea of time is definitely not one in the A's favor. Quite simply, Carter can either show he is capable of a full-time stint with the A's, or it is time to cut ties. A total of 39 games is ...
Craig Gentry's two out, go ahead three-run triple climaxed a four-run eighth inning as Texas rallied to beat the A's 4-3.After cruising through sixth with the sore at 2-0, the A's turned to Grant Balfour as a bridge to Ryan Cook in the eighth inning. Unfortunately, Balfour could not hold the lead as three walks and a single chased him after two-thirds of an inning. Cook induced what seemed to be a playable fly ball to left center field but Yoenis Cespedes took a bad angle to the ball and it went over his head, allowing all three runs to ...