MVN - Most Valuable Network

April If You May

Before I get going, I will note that the A’s season started in March, but for the sake of this post I am going to clump those two games in Tokyo as taking place during April.

April is in the books for the A’s, and I must say this was an unexpected opening month for the green & gold. After 29 games, the A’s sit one game behind the rival Angels in the AL West at 17-12. More importantly, the A’s series record is 6-2-1. With injuries to Rich Harden, Eric Chavez, Travis Buck, and The Duke, Oakland could be in much worse position. But the young bucks have carried the team to their hottest start since, well, before 2004 at least. Young bucks like Dana Eveland, Greg Smith, Kurt Suzuki, and more have stepped up their game to lead Oakland to a hot start. Hopefully they can continue to come together and grow as a team as the season matures. Some high points of the first month has to be the exceptional production of the pitching staff. Hats off to Curt Young who has his boys leading the majors with a nasty 3.22 ERA. And with the team batting average at a dismal .250, the pitching staff appears to be the saving grace for Oakland. Let’s go with some bullet points:

• Kurt Suzuki is my offensive MVP of April. Despite cooling off lately and a lack of power, Kurt has really been consistent at the plate hitting .289 (2nd on team) with a .367 OBP (4th on team). Sure, his stats are not superb, but for a team that lacks power he is getting on base and scoring runs (14 runs, 4th on team). Not only that, Kurt has become a viable option at the lead-off spot with the slow start and injury to Travis Buck.
• Santiago Casilla gets my vote for April MVP of the pitching staff (I know, it’s early to be handing out such titles, but whatever). Casilla was straight lights-out in April, pitching 13 1/3 innings of shutout baseball with a wicked 18-2 SO-to-BB ratio. If he continues this through the first-half of the season he is my candidate to represent Oakland in the All-Star game.
• Jack Cust’s .176 AVG, 1 HR, and 27 K’s makes me cringe.
• Jack Hannahan and Donnie Murphy’s combined hitting stats are; .220 AVG, 4 HR, 14 RBI. I would have to think Eric Chavez would hit for a better average, but the power numbers aren’t bad.
• Bobby Crosby is healthy!
• Joe Blanton has been a work-horse, but still lacks “ace of the staff” stuff. His 4.07 ERA is high, and he is getting shelled by right-handed batters (4.76 ERA, 3 HR).
• Emil Brown is tied for third in the majors with 25 RBI. Who knew? That’s on pace for a 150 RBI season.

Well, that’s a wrap for April. The A’s start May off tonight with the last game of a their 4-game series against the Anaheim/LA/SoCal…whatever, Angels. A win would split the opening series with the Halos.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.