2008 Oakland A’s Season Blog, The Exodus (1-3)

Well, after a split in Japan the boys returned to the mainland and promptly dropped two at home against the BoSox.  Losing 5-0 in a day game in Oakland today, the A’s proved that their lack of offensive muster will plague them all year.  After scoring 10 runs in the two games overseas, the A’s could only get one run across in their first two games in McAfee.  That lone run was on a Jack Cust solo shot Tuesday night.

Since the game was played during work hours today, we’ll go to the A’s home site to pick up some game review.

Right on the heels of a three-hit output that cost them the opener of a two-game series with the Red Sox on Tuesday night, the A’s managed but four hits in the matinee finale Wednesday, falling, 5-0, at McAfee Coliseum.

No surprises there.  Rich Harden went 5 shut out innings and struck out 6, but it wasn’t an uneventful outing for Harden.  In his 5 innings of work he gave up 4 hits and walked 4.  I still haven’t seen Harden throw much this year (he’s only had two starts after all) but his walk numbers have been high these first two starts.  He was limited to 86 pitches today (on a 90-pitch limit for the game) and 53 of those were strikes, so it doesn’t sound like his control is off that much.  It did take him 25 pitches to get through the first, so starting strong early will need to be a short term goal.

But the positives are that Harden has thrown two brilliant starts (0.82 ERA in two games against one of the best lineups in baseball) and has yet to feel any pain.  Bobby Crosby has been healthy thus far as well.  He’s hitting .286 over the first 4 games and seems to be seeing the ball a little better than he was in limited time last year.

Well, we’ve inundated you with two of these entries today, so we’ll let it go at that.  The A’s host a 3-game set with the Tribe (am I still allowed to call them that?  Too offensive?) starting Friday.  Here’s to hoping Duchscherer makes the transition from the pen to starter well.  We’ll also see how Eveland does in the rotation.  Until next time enjoy the games, enjoy some brews, and most importantly if you know a good right-handed power hitter who’ll play for $300,000 a year and not leave after 4 years, e-mail me pronto.