2008 Oakland A’s Season Blog, The Exodus (39-31)

Why, oh why, can’t the A’s just play in the NL?  The boys are 5-2 in interleague play after Tuesday night’s drubbing of the Arizona Diamondbacks.  This runs their winning streak to 4 after a phenomenal series sweep against the Bay Town rival Giants.

Fifteen runs is a lot in one game for a team ranked sixteenth in the league in scoring.  Hell, it’s a lot for any team.  The only sad part is that the first seven came off UK alum Brandon Webb.  It got ugly early with the A’s scoring in every inning for the first five.  Things were really ugly late as Oakland tacked on 6 in the ninth for good measure.

With the merry-go-round on the basepaths it’s easy to overlook what the Duke did on the hill last night.  Duchscherer was amazing again, needing only 93 pitches to work through 8 innings of one run ball.  His ERA is a ridiculous 2.08 after last night’s start.  If you’re looking for an early season MVP on this club, this man gets my vote.  He just sat in the organization waiting for his chance to start and did a great job as a relief pitcher until he got his chance.  Now that he’s gotten it, he’s not lettin’ it go either.  I’m a big fan of Rich Harden, but it’s a treat to watch Duke take the hill every time.  The way he throws effortlessly and hits his spots makes for a great game to watch for a real baseball fan.

Well, the four game streak holds the A’s at 3 games back to the Angels.  Can someone tell me how the Angels keep winning games by the way?  Their lineup has not been as good as ours this year (name me one offensive stat other than HR where they have a discernible lead on us) and our pitching has been the best in all of baseball to this point.  We’re 3-4 against them on the season, so it’s not like we’ve given away a lot of games to them that would affect the standings a lot.  Jeez, it’s just baseball I guess. 

Joe Blanton (this year’s “ace”) against Dan Haren (last year’s ace) tonight.  I will definitely be tuning in to watch another UK boy (JB) throw tonight and to see how good Haren does against the A’s.  Dan didn’t choose to go away like some people *cough* up yours Zito! *cough* so I hope he doesn’t implode after facing his old team like the lefty across the bay did.  Haren is a good pitcher and a good guy; you have to wish him the best.  Only maybe for just one night I could use you to elevate that fastball to the tune of about 5 runs Danny.  K, thanks.  Everyone tune in tonight for West Coast baseball and leave some comments as I’ll be pseudo live blogging the thing up for the first few innings.  Until then, enjoy the games, enjoy some brews, and if you have a former Cy Young Award winner who needs to be taken down a peg, e-mail me pronto.