Sports Weekend in the Bay

Thoughts on the weekend action for the A's, Giants, and Warriors:

A's: Two of three from the Indians isn't half bad. Oakland's starters look awesome, compiling a 2.13 ERA (tops in the American League) through the first week. Unfortunately as good as the starters have been, the offense has been worse, as the A's are hitting an anemic .218 with a .634 OPS through 8 games. Obviously both numbers are going to regress toward normal as the season rolls on, but with the early returns it looks like this year's squad is shaping up a lot like last year: great starting pitching, shaky bullpen, terrible hitting. And, with the Duke possibly hitting the DL after putting a great line of 5IP/6K's/2BB/4H/1ER in his first start, injury problems galore.

Things I love about the A's seven games in:

Dana Eveland 7IP/7K's/1BB/6H/1ER and the w in his first start of the year.

Kurt Suzuki 9/24 with an .881 OPS, 4R, and no errors behind the plate.

Things I hate about the A's seven games in:

Travis Buck 0/21 with no walks and 9K's.

Huston Street 0-1, 12.27 ERA in 3 and 2/3 IP. Oof.

Warriors: After playing a reasonably solid three and a third quarters against the Hornets (the score was 90-90 four minutes into the fourth) , the Warriors ran out of gas in New Orleans, falling 106-98. Not a terrible performance considering Golden State was wrapping up a four game road trip that included games against three playoff teams, but this definitely was not a performance that inspires confidence in the dubs' ability to finish strong over the final week of the season.

Fortunately for Golden State fans, the loss at New Orleans was mitigated by a surprising performance by the Seattle Sonics, who took advantage of Denver's Achilles Heel: the inability to win games when allowing teams to score more than 150 points (in the Nuggets' defense the game did go to Double OT). Which means the Warriors are tied with the Nuggets with both teams having 5 games left, including the all important tilt in Oakland on this Thursday on TNT. The Warriors schedule looks reasonably favorable: home against Sacto, Denver, and the Clippers, away against the Suns, than home against the Sonics in the last game of the year. Denver plays at the Clippers, at Golden State, at Utah, Houston and Memphis.

Which means that I think the Warriors path to the playoffs is simple: beat Denver, then win three of the remaining four games. If Denver loses to the Warriors and the W's go 4-1 overall Denver will have to win at Utah and beat Houston at home to stay even with the W's. Which could very easily happen, but I don't see the Nuggets bouncing back if they lose to Golden State in Oakland on Thursday.

On the flip side, a loss at home to the Nuggets and the Warriors are toast. And this team is probably getting bounced in the first round no matter what happens, Davis and Jackson are simply out of gas.

Giants: I don't know if Ben Sheets complete game shutout (9 IP, 5 hits, 8 K's, 0 BB) is a reflection if his greatness or the Giants' crappiness. I do know that the Giants got swept by the Brewers over the weekend and are losing 5-1 to the Padres as I write this post. Though I will say that this weekend's action gave me an idea for a new weekly feature: which is higher, Barry Zito's WHIP or the Giants' team batting average?

Currently Zito's WHIP is 1.90, the team is batting a cool .221. Tune in next week to see where things go from here.