Exhale

Exhale.

It was getting a pretty rough for a minute. I guess it's hard to be creative in the middle of a 6 game slide. But life is intact. The A's picked up 2 straight against the reigning AL Champions and we the dust has been kicked off. Giambi homered. Buck homered. The veteran of our young pitching staff got his first win, and the A's are on the board in all the right momentum categories.

The AL West is off to an unforeseen beginning, with Seattle having won 20% of last years win total... in April. They're hot at 12-7 and their small lead looks favorably on the 5+ months of baseball yet to play. Texas leads the league in home runs, and having lost some offense-heavy meetings, the hold 2nd place by half a game at 8-10. The Angels are in LAST place, and the highly anticipated and well staffed Oakland offense is inching the A's toward .500.

It wasn't the losses so much as the way were losing. Over the last 2 weeks the A's epitomized baseball futility. We were batting .200, pitching with 3 shut outs up until yesterday. We lost 12th inning and 14th inning heartbreakers on the road, and simply could not score when we needed to. Holiday and Giambi were homerless and the A's as a group were dead last in home runs. The word "anemic" is often used to describe an offense in these scenarios, but maybe "retarded" is more apt. The A's seemed incapable of outscoring their opponents.

But the ship has been righted. Geren gave Travis Buck the start, and he made the skipper look foolish for denying him the last 4 games at-bats. But more importantly, Giambi homered. To right. The last 4 weeks have seen more than a few line-drive outs, as defenses put on the shift for the big left hander. Today the infield was irrelevant, as Jason rocked a long ball into the bleachers like he did 33 times in 2008. OK. He's not broken. Our $5.25 investment is not a lemon. The pressure is off. Exhale.

A secondary (yet vital) aspect of our game is also looking good, with Dallas Braden and Dana Eveland posting wins againist last year's World Series runners up. Bradens 2.53 ERA leads the A's (as do his 2 wins) and it's also good enough for 9th in the American League. He beat the Red Sox and the Rays, and he did not look outmatched. This is kind of start you need for the youngest pitching staff in baseball. While some of the A's rotation has taken its lumps, others have demonstrated impressive outings against real-deal teams.

Ziggy is tied for 2nd in the league in saves. He's not a fluke. He's a groundball machine with a gold glove defense behind him. Orlando Cabrera broke an 0 for 8 slump today going 2 for 4 with a double. Russ Springer is earning his 2 million with an impressive 1.08 ERA. Garciaparra is looking like the free agent pickup of the year, coming up clutch in the last 3 games. Signs of life are everywhere at the Coliseum this afternoon.

7-10 is not exactly lights-out, but this afternoon, I'll take it. We took the series against the reigning pennant winners, and we did it with offense. The pitching looked good too, but we scored runs. You can't post a winning season while scoring like we did in 2008. Offense was the objective, and offense brought us 2 straight wins. The A's ride a day off into an 8 game road stretch and hope the bats can stay hot against Texas and Seattle, whose equally struggling pitching staffs will seek to cool them.

LET'S GO OAK-LAND!!!

R.I.P. Nick Adenhart

The kid in red looked sharp last night. Cool. Calm with runners on... wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sharp-cornered red hat. Six scoreless innings of 6 hit ball, a 22 year old rookie reducing Major League hitters to groundouts and wiffs. He strolled off the mound and into the dugout with the quiet air of a guy who'd almost earned it. His cockiness was well contained, as if he knew his best days were still ahead of him.

This morning I find it incredible to think that talent is gone; taken swiftly by the force of a drunk driver. Rookie pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed last night in Fullerton, a few short hours after his professional career saw its brightest moment. 20+ years of practice... a lifetime of commitment: little league, playing catch with his dad, high school 2-a-days in summer, 3 minor league seasons and a very real promise of greatness... all taken away.

Being ranked the #35 prospect in pro baseball is no small accomplishment. Choosing a minor league career over a full ride to the University of North Carolina, Nick had seen his destiny and chased it at full speed. He improved quickly, and after an elbow surgery at 18 years old, he started making some waves in the Angels organization. Nick dominated AAA in 2008, and got a couple of shaky starts in the big leagues. At 22, this was going to be his year. The Angels suffered some key injuries in the rotation, and Nick was given the chance to prove himself. He did that and more last night, going 6 scoreless innings for Anaheim and striking out 5 Oakland batters. He looked sharp. He looked every ounce a big league pitcher.

Last night his talent bugged me. In fact, the thought of him mowing down A's hitters for the next 5 years scared me. I never thought I'd sincerely mourn the loss of a rival, but a tragedy like this puts things into perspective. It's just baseball. A game. For Nick Adenhart, however, it was more. It was his life--in a way most of us will never know. To be so good at something, so much better than the millions and millions of others who try, that he reached the very top--is truly remarkable, and the kind of achievement that most can only imagine. Nick Adenhart got to feel that, if only for one night.