A's finish 2nd in AL

Once, again, our beloved los athletics finished second place, except this time they were second place IN THE AMERICAN LEAGUE.  However, knowing the A's their season ended in disappointment again after losing to Jim Leyland's Detroit Tigers.  I believe it would have been a better season if Macha wouldn't have let Rincon so much and used more Duchscherer instead. 

Some cool sites to ponder: http://www.baseball-reference.com/m/murphdu01.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/t/taylobi02.shtml

http://www.treasuretrooper.com/8288

      During the offseason, Ken Macha almost left the A's, only to be pulled back to many fans' displeasure.  Another bad desicion was to give a bunch of money to Esteban Loaiza, the pitcher who had one great cy young year and the rest weren't too good.  Here's something from

http://www.firemacha.blogspot.com/
  
 Oakland Athletics off to about .500 start
                                                                                                                                                                                         

After trading two of the best pitchers on the team, most people thought that Billy Beane had wrecked the team.  In those trades, the Oakland Athletics acquired many young players who may not have been to good in past years, but they are starting to really heat up.  Key players included in the Hudson and Mulder deals were Kiko Calero (below), Dan Haren, Dan Meyer, Juan Cruz, and speedy Charles Thomas, who former manager Bobby Cox highly praises for his hard work and superb fielding.  In another trade, in which the A's traded away reliever Justin Lehr and outfielder Nelson Cruz , they added middle infielder Keith Ginter.  In another move, they signed pitcher Keiichi Yabu and Seth Etherton.  In what might have been their biggest move this off-season, they got Jason Kendall and named him their starting catcher.  See more on the Message Board and The Athletics pages.  The two new pitchers in the A's starting rotation are Kirk Saarloos and Joe Blanton. 

As of September 24th, the A's were four games back from the Angels for the lead in the AL west.  The Indians have the lead in the wild card race and don't look like they're going to let go of that lead.  The A's inconsistent hitting is hurting them a lot and is a HUGE reason the A's aren't in the lead ahead of the Angels.  Another thing that's hurting them is using LHP Ricardo Rincon way too much and not using Justin Duchscherer enough.  Duchscherer has a better ERA against lefties than Rincon, whom lefties hit about .260 off of.  They bat about .210 against Duchscherer. 

A bad omen for the A's is they have a harder schedule than the Angels in this part of the year.  They have more away games than home games, but anything can happen in the last seven games, when the Angels come to Oakland for a four game series followed by the Mariners finishing off the season with a three game series at Oakland. 

After a slow first half, the A's have really picked it up since the beginning of June.  The A's may have three all stars, but the one that was chosen for the all star game was Justin Duchscherer (above).  The A's added Duchscherer from the Rangers in exchange for reliever Luis Vizcaino, who is now on the Chicago White Sox.  Duchscherer, a former Rivercat and PCL pitcher of the year, came up to the majors with the A's in 2003.  He was a starter until about a year ago, when he became the "mop-up man."  This year he became the A's premier reliever.  He did a great job filling in  as closer when Huston Street was injured.  This fill-in roll may be how he got nominated in to the all-star game by Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona.