To Build a Baseball Team.

As far as I can tell (and I'm probably missing something extremely obvious) there are no literary references to the city of Oakland, CA. And so we go with Jack London's (who grew up in Oakland) To Build a Fire. And given that we're talking about the As, it seems like a good title.

For NESN, this is all about the return of Nomar and, to a lesser extent, O Cab. For me, I'm most excited about the return of best beloved, Craig Breslow. It's odd to be as invested in the success of someone you don't know as I am in Breslow's but I couldn't shake it when he was with the Indians or the Twins. I don't suppose that there's any reason to believe that since he's with Oakland I'll be free of him now. Incidentally, he's been doing well out there--the walks are mostly down.

Lefty Brett Anderson pitches for Oakland tonight. He was the opposing pitcher during Wakey's near no-hitter in April. He gave up two runs on five hits in seven innings; the two runs being the result of a Mike Lowell home run. He struck out five and walked two (one intentionally). In general, he has struggled against left-handed batters. He's only made it to seven innings one other time this season. He can get some velocity on his fastball (he hit 97 mph in his last start) but his control also took a hit in the start.

Dallas Braden makes the start for Oakland tomorrow. Off all the promising lefties Oakland started off the season with, Braden has been the most successful. On April 13, he allowed six hits in six innings; two runs, one walk, and three strike outs. Youkilis had both a double and a home run. Braden has been really tough on lefties this year.

Trevor Cahill pitches the last game of the series for the As. He's got a ninety mile per hour fastball, a slider, a curveball, and a changeup. He had shown strike out potential in the minor leagues (he was often compared to Brandon Webb) but it hasn't really translated. He gives up too many walks and not enough strike outs (his season high is five). He's pretty young and so they keep a pretty tight leash on him; the most pitches he's thrown in seventeen starts is 107.

Oakland's offense has struggled this year. If Matt Holliday was hoping to hook up with the Yankees next year for spectacular money, then he's going to have to have a spectacular second half. Jason Giambi has eleven home runs and Jack Cust has fourteen. Adam Kennedy and Kurt Suzuki are having decent years. The As aren't going to score a lot of runs. If you can score more than four runs off of them, it's likely that you'll win the game.