The San Francisco 49ers have had the welcome mat thrown out for them in Santa Clara after 5-2 vote by the city council. Despite the cries from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom for the city to use the money for schools and infrastructure, the council moved forward with only one last hurdle to renaming the team the Santa Clara 49ers (I don’t know what they would be called).

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Well, there we go. Contrary to what I said about Dana Eveland getting a spot start tomorrow, and keeping Vin Mazzaro in reserve, they’ve called up Vin and he’ll be going tomorrow. It’ll be an interesting test for the young right hander; he doesn’t seem to have much else left to prove, or learn, in triple A Sacramento. He’s certainly going to have confidence on his side, if nothing else.

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Friday Game one: A’s 3-6 Rangers

Friday Game two: A’s 2-5 Rangers

Saturday: A’s 1-14 Rangers

Sunday: A’s 5-4 Rangers

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Monday: Mariners 1-6 A’s

Tuesday: Mariners 3-4 A’s

Wednesday: Mariners 6-1 A’s

One of the recurring themes of this season thus far is the inability of the A’s lineup to hit tricky left handed pitching. Time and time again, they’ve looked bamboozled, and have not been able to give the team’s young starters the run support they need. This was the case again in the final game of the three game set with the Seattle Mariners; lefty Erik Bedard kept the A’s bats to just five hits. One of these however, scored the A’s only run of the game and it came courtesy of the first long ball of the year for Bobby Crosby. A Bobby Crosby Home run. Yes, I’m scared too. Against Bedard, Cahill put together another quality start, giving up three runs in six innings, before the bullpen gave up a couple of insurance runs later on.

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For Giants fans, the fun began over the weekend when word leaked out that Brian Sabean was possibly thinking about contemplating making in an attempt to do something about an incredibly offensive offense and making a trade for a decent hitter.  The story may be true or not be true and the rumors that followed may be true or not true, but dreaming of wonderful trades that could very possibly save the season is much more fun than watching a steady stream of being on the losing end of 2-1 games.

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Friday: Diamondbacks 2-1 A’s

Saturday: Diamondbacks 8-7 A’s

Sunday: Diamondbacks 2-6 A’s

In the battle of two supposedly dormant offenses, the Diamondbacks came out on top in the first of the year’s interleague series. The first game went as expected; a low scoring affair in which Arizona managed to overcome a solo homerun from Matt Holliday (his sixth of the year) thanks to a run each batted in from Montero and Young. What is more encouraging for the A’s was that Trevor Cahill was able to pitch into the eighth inning, going 7 1/3 and giving up just the two runs on six hits, and most importantly managing to give the bullpen a rest.

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Monday: A’s 4-13 Rays

Tuesday: A’s 4-1 Rays

Wednesday: A’s 7-6 Rays

Thursday: A's 5-6 Rays

This is going to be one of those seasons, isn’t it. Coming off a tough, tough series against a resurgent Tigers team, the A’s got walloped in the first game of their four game set against the Rays, going down thirteen to four behind another shaky start from Sean Gallagher, who gave up nine runs in 2.1 innings of work. It was painful.  The A’s had lost four on the bounce, and if this season were a boxing match, then the A’s would have been reeling on the ropes and surely the referee would have been stepping in to stop the fight.

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In a rare moment of intelligence, both FOX and Bud Selig realized that World Series games that end around 1 in the morning East Coast time is not a great thing as with the exception of the team's die hard fans and insomniacs, nobody is actually watching the game when it ends.

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It’s hard to write about the Oakland Athletics after a weekend like this. Hot on the heels of an encouraging two game sweep of the Kansas City Royals, the A’s were outscored 34-9 over the course of three games by the Detroit Tigers. The only game that they came close to being in was the last when, when they leapt out to a six run lead after two innings, before being hauled in again to go down 7-11.

This, understandably, has raised the ire of A’s fans, and questions are being asked about the team’s direction, their leadership, and the overall future of the franchise. What is sure is that putting such a poorly performing team out doesn’t please anyone, and for a club that’s not really been filling their stadium for a number of years, it’s particularly troubling. Whilst there are obviously a number of factors involved, one thing is for certain; the best marketing strategy is a winning side. And that’s something that Oakland hasn’t been doing with any sort of consistency for the last few years.

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So, just a quick update before the Detroit series starts in a couple of hours. Firstly, a quick bit of cross promotion – I wrote an article about Wednesday’s cross-Bay double header for our sister site at proball.us. Have a read of it here.

As for the A’s, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that reliever Santiago Casilla has been activated from the fifteen day disabled list, and outfielder Aaron Cunningham has been called up from AAA affiliate the Sacramento Rivercats. In order to make room for them on the twenty five man roster, relievers Jeff Grey and Jerry Blevins, who has been struggling for form of late, have been sent back down.

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