As many on AN have speculated, given Brett Anderson's visible loss in velocity and struggles to get opposing hitters out over the last several starts, the pitcher's left elbow is going to be examined by doctors (just our team's or external, not quite clear yet) and he has already left the team, headed back to the Bay Area. If he does land on the DL, this will see him joining hurlers Dallas Braden, Brandon McCarthy and Tyson Ross just in the last two months (and we're not even counting Rich Harden) - another blow to the A's otherwise excellent staff.

Anderson's last outing, which lasted only five innings, and saw him give up five runs to the Red Sox, brought his season ERA to a not-so-shiny 4.00, and dropped his record to 3-6.

Source for today's bad news comes courtesy of the Contra Costa Times.

UPDATE: Susan Slusser reports that Rosales has been called up and is in tonight's lineup. De Los Santos and Kevin Kousmannoff have been "optioned out". Scott Sizemore has also been called up. (via Twitter)

It's not easy being an Oakland A's manager. You don't get credit when things go well, the GM does. You don't get the players other managers get. You don't get the stadium other managers get. The commissioner of your sport doesn't even want to acknowledge you exist. Your predecessor had the personality of a lemon, and you have the personality of a pickle. You were picked over a fan favorite who just so happened to lead his team to the World Series last year. The team across the bay, God forbid, actually won it. So you're not feeling great.

After 130 games in this campaign, the A's record lies at an even 65-65.

.500 - a mark the team has seemingly been unable to shake for the majority of the year, settling just below or just above the mark, but not too far. And every time the team seems to be getting into a groove, they fall back down to earth with a thud, only to rise back up and tease us again.

For the diehards among us, this can be infuriating. We can be eternal optimists, or darkly, wish the team would just commit to losing so we could get better draft position.

But here's the truth, and it's not really that bad. We are a .500 team, on the upswing from some miserable seasons, and have got a core group of players that could take us well beyond where we are now, just like we saw 23 years ago. 

The 1987 Oakland Athletics and 2010 Oakland Athletics are no doubt very different in terms of their strengths. They featured a rookie Mark McGwire (and his 49 HR, 118 RBI) as well as Jose Canseco's sophomore campaign (with 31 HR, 113 RBI), supported by 22 HR from Mike Davis, 19 HR from Carney Lansford and 16 HR from Terry Steinbach. 

On the basepaths, Lansford swiped 27 bases, with Alfredo Griffin pilfering 26, Davis 19 and Canseco 15 (with only 3 caught stealing!).

So the 1987 squad was entertaining on offense, much more than our current roster.

Conversely, the team's pitching staff was nothing to write home about. Only Dave Stewart had a sub-4.00 ERA among the starters (in a home run happy year for the majors), and he gained a 20-13 record. Current pitching coach Curt Young followed with a 13-7 mark, and the rest of the hurlers were unimpressive, as closer Dennis Eckersley started to find his groove with a teasingly low 16 saves on the season. 

At the end of the year, the batting heavy, pitching light squad finished 81 and 81. .500. From my memory, the final record was quite disappointing. The A's had expected more with a Canseco and McGwire tandem, but it was just a five win improvement from 1986's 76-86 mark, the fifth straight losing season after winning the split season division championship in 1981.

The 2010 A's squad comes similarly after three straight losing campaigns of 76 wins, 75 wins and last year's 75-87 mark. If the team finishes the year at .500, it would be a six game improvement over 2009, and similarly, feel like a disappointment, not because of amazing power and a string of Rookies of the Year, but instead, because of a lights-out youthful pitching staff. Now, our strength comes from the mound. 

In 1988, the A's were off the charts amazing through the regular season, with a dominant 104 wins, a 23 game improvement over 1987. So what changed? Canseco was a monster, yes, but McGwire actually played worse than 1987, and the arrival of Dave Henderson (24 HR, 94 RBI) simply replaced Mike Davis. Lansford regressed in the power department from 18 to 7, and only Dave Parker was the other to break double digit homers with 12, as Steinbach fell to 9.

What changed was the arrival of Bob Welch and Storm Davis, who went 17-9 and 16-7 respectively, and the blossoming of Eckersley who jumped to 45 saves, as part of a meticulous bullpen that flourished under Tony LaRussa and Dave Duncan with Gene Nelson, Rick Honeycutt, Eric Plunk and Greg Cadaret being incredible. Walt Weiss may have picked up the A's third Rookie of the Year award in a row, but he wasn't a 23-game difference. What was a difference was the improvement seen by Canseco, and the maturation of the starters and bullpen.

Here in 2010, we see amazing talent on the mound - which should be as strong, if not even better in 2011. The weakness for us is at the plate. If Carter or Taylor make their way onto the roster in 2011, and we see continued improvement from Daric Barton, Coco Crisp and others, we could see this team blossom.

Will 2011 see 100+ wins? Probably not. We don't (allegedly) have the benefit of steroids. But if you see yourself getting frustrated by our lackluster 65-65 mark, think back to recent baseball history and wonder how you would feel if you got to see a core team of players with solid talent grow together from 1986 and '87 to the dynasty of the late '80s and early 90's, and what it would be like to be part of that again.

23 years ago. 23 wins to improve. It's no coincidence. :)

Susan Slusser reports what many of us have thought of, if not said aloud, regarding Eric Chavez's future - it's possible he doesn't have one in a baseball uniform at all. Her column, which you can find here, reports that Chavez is as indecisive as ever, saying in an e-mail: "The truth of the matter is that I don't know what I'm going to do."

Chavez, as you know, won six Gold Gloves with the A's, from 2001 to 2006, and has 230 home runs with the team. At this point, his name pretty much hearkens back to the late 90's/early 2000's teams, featuring Miguel Tejada and Jason Giambi, as he has faded to memory, playing less than a full season's worth of games from 2007 through this year, including only 8 games in 2009 and 23 in 2008. He also has come to represent the futility of the A's spending, as his monster six year, $66 million contract has practically been a wash for more than half of its tenure.

With Kevin Kouzmanoff coming into his own at 3rd base and Daric Barton becoming a team leader at 1st base, one wonders if even a healthy Chavez could take time away at either infield spot, or just join the roster of players, led by Jack Cust, at designated hitter. For a guy once known for the best hot corner play in the league, if not the majors, for more than half a decade, the prospect of recovering from back surgeries and neck surgeries to be less than half a player can't be a happy one. If he does retire, I believe the A's fans will understand, and remember him for the glory days, not his trying again to come back as a broken man to the green and gold.

For me, being born in the same year as Chavez (1977), it's hard to think of this guy as more than over the hill, seeking retirement. Maybe it truly is too late for me to put on the spikes and try out for my minor league career. But Chavy, if you've got nothing going on after this, maybe we can go hit a few flies in the East Bay. For old timer's sake.

Much more from Chavez, via e-mail, in Slusser's story.

After three full innings, the A's and Angels remain scoreless. Dallas "Perfect Game" Braden has given up a single, thus ending his bid to be an improved version of Johnny Vander Meer, but he, with some great help from the infield, has kept the Angels off the board. Meanwhile, the A's have also kept themselves off the board. A 3rd inning leadoff double by Josh Donaldson was squandered. So on to the 4th we go!

Dear Oakland Athletics and Associated Baseball Gods (OAABG),

Thank you for your acknowledging that East Bay fans and those Non-Resident A's Fans (NRAFs) occasionally cannot attend games live, and may enjoy taking in the occasional contest via radio. We recognize that certain other ballclubs, particularly those sporting orange and black uniforms, have had an incestuous relationship with their own radio station empire for several decades now, and in the meantime, your own approach to the audio dial has been confusing and scattered. We know that practically every season, we have grown accustomed to learning not just of a new roster of players, but which station will carry our green and gold. We understood that when you were part of KGOD, we understood that when you switched to an FM frequency, and we understand it now that you are on KTRB, which bills itself as XTRA Sports 860. 860 may not exactly be 680, but at least the numbers are the same, right?

So... yes. About why I am writing...

With the deepest amount of respect and kindness, I ask simply, are you confused? Or more directly, what the heck are you thinking by muddling up a "sports station" with five hours of political dreck from one of the most divisive characters possible? (You know... this guy. http://www.michaelsavage.com/)

If I listen to your A's broadcast at night, and it is the last thing I hear on the radio, odds are the next morning, when I start the car, I am going to hear the unique "take" from Mr. Savage, in which he specifically takes a viewpoint that runs contrary to practically all of the A's community, if you assume polls and voting records are accurate. For the record, even if this gentleman were to share my political views in totality, I do not believe that this show belongs on a channel dedicated to sports. It makes no sense to have Mr. Savage provided with five (FIVE!) high profile hours of your airtime on a channel which we turn to in the hopes of hearing sports.

KNBR may not be my favorite station, but they haven't given up even a single hour of their precious airtime to Mr. Limbaugh or Mr. Hannity or Mr. Beck or Mr. O'Reilly or Mr. Franken or Michael Moore. They are a sports station and they broadcast sports - or something resembling. So are you. You broadcast sports. ESPN doesn't run politics on any of its multitude of channels. Do you know why? Because they are a sports network.

So why are you so confused? Why do you want to insult your listeners and the community by poisoning the airwaves with anything other than the purity of sports? I recognize maybe it's about money and ratings, and all that... but what I am learning is that I cannot trust you with my radio dial, and I must turn on your channel when the games begin, and turn it off when the games end. The non-sports content is hurting the ratings of all your other shows, period. I don't even want to check and see who they are most days, by the chance I may bump into Mr. Savage or any of the nutty off-topic promotions for his show.

I won't muddy up this beautiful sports-related Web site with details around your show's content. I think you know what they are, and I also think you know that the vast majority of A's fans are opposed to the tone and content. But that's not the point. The point is that you are presenting one of the first real alternatives to the KNBR duopoly (680 + 1050) in the San Francisco Bay Area, and yet, you are killing it before it has a chance to grow. I love the A's, but I don't love this.

Please find another way to fill your airtime with something resembling sports. We would be very grateful.

Thank you from a life-long A's fan.

After six full, the A's have scored six full. The Angels, the #1 team in the division, have scored a mere third of that.

Brett Tomko, having reached the 100 pitch mark, was pulled from the game, and Craig Breslow came in, as Geren consulted his "Management by Numbers" playbook and followed the "If pitch count > or = 100, then replace pitcher with Breslow" rule.

But Breslow gave up a near-bomb to Kendry Morales, turning a 6-1 lead to a 6-2 contest. We'll hope that's the end of the nonsense, as the A's bullpen looks to run Tomko's record to 3-0 since joining the A's.

After three full innings, the A's lead 5-1 over the Angels, on the back of a 2-run home run by Scott Hairston, a 2-run single through the infield by Kurt Suzuki, and a sacrifice fly by Mr. Jack Cust. Meanwhile, Brett Tomko gave up his alloted solo home run, and is hoping to keep his streak going as a member of the green and gold.

Sometimes, a small sample size can be a baseball statistician's best friend. So is the case with tonight's A's hurler, Brett Tomko, who in his two starts for the A's after being designated for assignment by the Yankees in July has done everything he could to make his old pinstriped employers look a little silly. Having allowed only a single run over 11 innings, with opponents batting .235, Tomko is sporting a Jeff Gray-like 0.82 ERA, to go along with 9 K's against 3 walks. Before you throw the Small Sample Size Book (TM) at me, just think about how awesome that would be if he could, you know, go a full season with 35 starts with 200 innings? We're talking Cy Young in a landslide!

But the downside of a small sample size is that typically, there is regression to the mean. Looking to help Tomko regress to the mean are the "not quite in Los Angeles" Angels, who have surprisingly lost four of their last five contests and six of their last eight, seeing their lead in the AL West over the Texas Rangers shrink to four games. Looking to turn that around is tonight's batting lineup, which features six players batting over .300 (and one batting .299) - so it's quite possible they are capable of doing so.

The A's lineup, featuring one batter over .280 (Raj), and a first baseman batting .204 (Barton), who replaced a first baseman who was batting .193 (Giambi), will be facing Angels rookie Trevor Bell, who in limited time (small sample size?) has a 9.49 ERA and a 1-1 record, including his last start against the Blue Jays, when he unceremoniously left the game after only an inning and two-thirds, giving up six runs. So who knows what will happen? Practically the only guarantee is that Craig Breslow will probably come in from the bullpen at some point.

9th Inning drama thread (to be open for potential extras, of course)...

The A's, having never led in the game, are now knotted at 3-3 with the Rays, following an RBI single from Orlando Cabrera that plated Bobby Crosby. Hannahan, unclear what to do in his rare appearance on the bases, was unable to extend the lead to 4-3, so we head to the 9th frame with the game up for grabs.

Braden, though he pitched well, has left the game, and will gather a much-desired no-decision.

After five full innings, including a thunderstorm-related power outage, the A's and Rays are deadlocked at 2. Highlights thus far have included Braden's Ryan Sweeney impression to snag a failed bunt attempt, an RBI single by Adam Kennedy, and a sac fly by the aforementioned Sweeney. Despite the tie, Garza is racking up the K's, with 7, and has claimed Hannahan, Suzuki and Cust twice each.

Should the A's capture today's game, it will make for the season's first three-game win streak. Go A's!

There's something pure about weekday baseball. And there's something refreshing about knowing the A's have put up a crooked number, not just in a single inning (or game, mind you), but in terms of the consecutive wins column. It's a rarity this year, as the team, as you know, has more than its fair share of disappointments. Yesterday, too, could have been slotted in that disappointment column, had it not been for the otherworldly levitating leapitude of one Ryan Sweeney who snatched victory from the jaws of what looked like an inevitable late-innings collapse on the part of Oakland.

But baseball is one game at a time, one day at a time, or so the platitudes tell me, which leads to this afternoon's matchup, featuring two pitchers going in opposite directions. The A's will post southpaw Dallas Braden, with his 3-5 record (including three straight losses), against the Rays' Matt Garza, who is 3-0 in his last four decisions, sporting a 4-2 record. Braden, who surprised us all by recovering from his being nailed by a line drive in the first inning during his start on May 10th, leads the team not just in fortitude, but ERA, wins and innings pitched.

As you may have already heard, lefty reliever Craig Breslow, acquired from the Twins, has joined the A's on their roster. To make room, OF Aaron Cunningham is headed down to Sacramento. On the pre-game show, Geren intimated Nomar could rejoin the club tomorrow, at which point a pitcher would likely be sent down.

We'll bring you the purity of weekday baseball from the decidedly unpure Tropicana Field, starting at 1:08 Pacific.

After having some control issues early in the game, Trevor Cahill has settled down, keeping the Mariners off the board. In parallel, the A's hitters are making Bedard look like something special, matching Cahill zero for zero.

We head on to the 7th inning with the two teams scoreless, and the A's needing to go out on top to avoid being swept on Easter Sunday. Let's see what Cahill has in mind for our heros...

With Justin Duchscherer making his time on the disabled list official, and with seemingly every A's pitcher struggling through the last few weeks of Spring Training (including 4 losses I saw in person which had them outscored 47-26), we are poised to start the year with a less than proven hurler taking the mound on Opening Day. Whether it's Braden, Gallagher or Eveland who starts us off, none of those guys are going to instill a level of fear that once was common in Oakland, whether that was in the time of Hudson/Mulder/Zito, or further back, when Dave Stewart and Bob Welch roamed the Coliseum.

But between the glory days of the late 80s and early 90s, and our run earlier this decade, the team saw a serious deficit in the pitching department, one I hope we're not repeating, but has me feeling a bit of deja vu. Take a look at these recent starting pitchers in A's Opening Day history (borrowed from Wikipedia):

1988 - 1995

• 1988: Dave Stewart
• 1989: Dave Stewart
• 1990: Dave Stewart
• 1991: Dave Stewart
• 1992: Dave Stewart
• 1993: Bob Welch
• 1994: Bobby Witt
• 1995: Dave Stewart

2001 - 2008

• 2001: Tim Hudson
• 2002: Mark Mulder
• 2003: Tim Hudson
• 2004: Tim Hudson
• 2005: Barry Zito
• 2006: Barry Zito
• 2007: Dan Haren
• 2008: Joe Blanton

They look great, don't they? In those sixteen seasons, the A's put up star-quality pitchers (with the possible exception of Witt in 1994), even though they had an average Opening Day record of 9-7 between them, including six straight wins from 1988-1993, and four straight losses from 2005-2008.

But between 1995 and 2001, you had a grab bag of starters on Opening Day, including some of the most mediocre "aces" you'll ever see in Green and Gold. Take a look:

1996 - 2000

• 1996: Carlos Reyes
• 1997: Ariel Prieto
• 1998: Tom Candiotti
• 1999: Gil Heredia
• 2000: Kevin Appier

Of those five, only Dr. Gil, as we called him, won his opening day contest, in what was a dark time for the franchise. Of course, this was when I was in college at nearby Cal, and saw my unfair share of losses, and half-price bleacher tickets while Mount Davis was under construction...

So why bring this up? Because even with the changes on the offensive side, the names being tossed about in our proposed rotation, and especially for opening day, have me feeling a lot more like 1996-2000 than it feels like 2001-2008, or anything like 1988-1995. Nico may believe that the A's rotation matches up well with the Angels and other division foes, but ... I have concerns.

Does Dallas Braden make you think of Tim Hudson or Dave Stewart, or is he just a reincarnation of Ariel Prieto? Is Gallagher the next Gil Heredia? And Eveland another Carlos Reyes? Or is this our big three of the future?

The twins' A's gear for the trip...

Although it looks like we missed BBG and others in the AN crew by a week, wifethereof and I have arrived in sunny Phoenix with the now nine months old Matthew and Sarah. We'll be at the Cleveland Indians game today, followed by games at the Mariners, and then home at Papago for games against the Sox and Cubs to close out our four day, four game swing.

Going to Spring Training is the one annual vacation my wife and I have made a tradition in our home, and while Matthew and Sarah might not remember it, they've already attended. But last year, they were only able to hear the games, being upside down and in the dark...

The twins' arrival pretty much put a stop to our season ticket tradition. Last year, the third year we had partial tickets, we only attended one ballgame with the kids after June, even if we watched along from home or on the radio for the rest. And we've even told Matthew and Sarah that the only TV they are allowed to watch until they are two is A's baseball and the MLB network. We're going to raise these kids right.

So... we're down here in Arizona, the four of us. We're going to be eating and breathing baseball for four days, and hope to see any of you there should we run into each other. It should be pretty clear which group we are. We're the tired-looking parents each dragging around A's clad 9 month olds.

Go A's!

In October, I wrote that "Rickey Henderson Should be the First Unanimous Hall of Famer." His credentials are impeccable, finishing his long career with 1,406 stolen bases, far and away the most ever, and 2,295 runs scored, an all time major league record. Along the way, he also tallied 3,055 hits, 297 home runs, 81 of them leading off a game, and won World Series with both the A's and the Toronto Blue Jays. He was a ten-time All Star, and the MVP in 1990. Rickey loved the game and played until he was 44 years old.

I posited three months ago that there was no conceivable reason that any Hall of Fame voter could possibly submit their ballot without the name "Rickey Henderson" selected.

I said:

Any writer who knowingly casts a ballot that does not include Rickey should be banned from ever voting again in the future, and they should be openly mocked, for they do not know this game.

Yet, shockingly, it looks like we have already found a voter who didn't choose Rickey Henderson when it came time to enter his ballot. As mentioned in the DLD, Corky Simpson of the Green Valley News and Sun skipped over Rickey, in favor of such luminaries as Matt Williams, Jim Rice, and Allen Trammel. In his story explaining his ballot, he suggests other names might be elected, including elite players like Jesse Orosco, Dan Plesac and Greg Vaughn. (Kid you not - look it up.) He includes Rickey in that same category, of "Others honored with nomination this year and who may well be voted into the Hall of Fame".

Will Rickey make into the Hall of Fame? Absolutely. As he once said, after swiping base #939 and breaking Lou Brock's record, he was "the greatest of all time". But this kind of tomfoolery has me incensed. I cannot fathom how a voter can conclude that Matt Williams was a legitimate Hall of Famer, and Rickey was not... that Rickey's name could be bandied about with such pedestrian colleagues as Plesac and Orosco. It is an insult to the player and it is an insult to the game.

We may never again have a man like Rickey, and as I see his exploits replayed on the new MLB Network, I am reminded how much he transcended every game. In my lifetime, I have seen some amazing players who will never take the field again: Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Rickey, for starters, all of whom should have been in the Hall unanimously. They say it doesn't matter - that the plaque is the same size, regardless of the vote - but shame on you, Corky Simpson, and shame on any other voter who knowingly, willingly commits what can only be seen as voter ineptitude bordering on fraud.

His answer, delivered after his idiocy was discovered: "I screwed up on the Henderson nonvote. You get to vote on 10 and I only picked eight. I probably did it too quickly." Really? You think? Take this guy's vote away. He has tarnished the game.

See also: Home Run Derby: Corky Simpson: The writer who didn’t vote for Rickey Henderson, where the author highlight's Corky's other lofty achievements... or the Mercury News: Rickey Henderson won't be unanimous to Hall of Fame.

At 3 p.m. Pacific Time this afternoon, the MLB Network is set to debut, billing itself as the first 24 hour, 7 days a week network devoted to baseball. The network is not a premium channel, but is instead included on most extended basic cable plans, so you might actually have it - and not know! (On Comcast Bay Area, it is #412)

You can also use the channel locator found here.

The first day's content recaps free agent signings and off-season player moves in a show they are calling "Hot Stove", and will be followed by the much-hyped first re-airing of Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. The network plans to both highlight players of the past, and showcase today's athletes, and will carry 26 regular season games.

Over the last few weeks, I have been watching the MLB Network a ton, considering it hadn't really launched yet. I saw highlight reels of famous fielding plays. I saw big game-ending home runs, from Dave Henderson to Joe Carter to deleted deleted in 1988. I watched highlights of Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, Nolan Ryan, and more, until I realized I'd seen all the pre-taped program, and found myself watching the same footage over again.

I am both excited about this debut and nervous. Given how ESPN has become practically unwatchable for me, I have to hope the MLB network can give us the raw baseball stories and highlights I am looking for. I worry greatly that they won't have enough original content each day, and that the same East Coast bias we've seen elsewhere will be here as well. Seeing the replay of the 2004 World Series during this time cemented that concern...

The MLB Network says it will highlight all 30 teams in Spring Training. It will feature an interview with Yogi Berra, Larsen and Bob Costas after today's re-airing. This could be great, or it could be another place for us to complain if the A's are featured 28th, and seen only once or twice in the 26 games. But I am hopeful, and that's part of what being a sports fan is all about.

Go 2009! Go A's! and good luck... MLB.

See also: MLB.com  MLB Network to debut in mere hours.

Starting off a home game with a lead in the early innings is never a bad thing. If the first two games of the World Series are any indication, the 2008 contest is going to be low-scoring, and it's going to be close. After Wednesday's 3-2 Phillies victory, the Rays matched their 9-inning output in the first frame of tonight's contest, adding on a third run in the second, to push ahead to a 3-0 lead, which proved to be enough to take the game, as the Phillies have shown no signs of learning how to hit with men on, eventually falling 4-2.

As with the ALCS, the Rays leave Tropicana with a 1-1 split, having lost the first game and taken the second. And while they scored enough to win, James Shields didn't give up a run into the sixth inning, making the Rays' early-inning runs stand up, despite many opportunities. The Phillies left 11 men on base, due in no small part to their batting 1-13 with men in scoring position, having gone 0-9 the night before.

This 1-22 stat is one we'll no doubt hear time and again from Joe Morgan and crew on their nightly broadcasts, just like we were treated to their comments about how the Rays "don't like to bunt with the lead" and the usual nonsense, as I heard yet again on the radio this evening. Of course, it was the Rays in the 4th using the bunt to squeeze in a run to go up 4-zip, rendering their "analysis" moot. It's all part of trying to fill the hours of airtime, which resumes Saturday at 5:35 Pacific time.