Friday: A’s 7-5 Padres

Saturday: A’s 6-3 Padres

Sunday: A’s 1-4 Padres

So, last time I started out by ragging on the Giants a little for not sustaining their success against the rest of the AL West. Well, clearly that worked, because they went out and swept the Rangers. The Rangers have now lost four on the bounce, and their bats have gone quiet; hopefully this marks the start of their traditional midsummer slump. The Angels, on the other hand, have won seven out of the last ten, and although they dropped two to the Dodgers, they’re looking good as the all star break comes up. It looks as if the AL West will be decided on what trades these two teams can put together. Can Texas acquire more pitching?

Obviously, the A’s could win twenty in row… hm.

Probably the biggest headline of the weekend’s series for the A’s was that on Friday Josh Outman only managed to pitch an inning and two thirds before leaving the mound with a sore arm. Sporting a 3.48 ERA, Outman has been a real success story for the Athletics this season, and they can ill afford to lose him for an extended period of time. The injury is a mild flexor-extensor strain in his left arm, but he said yesterday that it didn’t seem as bad as expected. His next start is due to be against the Giants on Wednesday, and whilst I’m sure he wants to help his team by getting out there, it would seem prudent, especially given that there’s not a whole lot to play for this season, to play it careful and have him miss that.

Gio Gonzalez has been pitching superbly in Sacramento lately (he’s really lowered his walk rate), so either he, or Edgar Gonzalez, who has been pitching long relief for the A’s, would step up and take the start. Actually, this could be a great opportunity for Gio to show what he can do; if he succeeds for a couple of starts, it might give the A’s the option to send down Brett Anderson to triple A to work on things.

Aside from the two wins, the other good thing for the A’s this series was that they only committed one error. After ugly fielding performances against the Dodgers and the Giants, this was a good bounce back. It is American League Parks from here on out, so that should help tighten things up too.

Next up is the return series against the Giants, as San Francisco cross the Bay Bridge to Oakland. Probably the most intriguing pitching matchup will be Vin Mazzaro once again going against Tim Lincecum. Lincecum won a close game last time, so the Athletics will need to do something against him if Mazzaro is going to have a chance for revenge. What will be most interesting is how Mazzaro copes with the Giants again. This will be the first time in his brief major league career that he’ll be going up against hitters that have seen him before; if he’s going to have the long and successful career we all hope he will, how he deals with this going forward will be vital.

There are a whole host of promotional events at the Coliseum over the next three days, so if you’re going down, enjoy the games and pick me up a t-shirt!

Go A’s!