Well, what do you think will happen tonight? Losing streak is seven, and why, prey tell, is there any reason to think it won’t be eight?

Anyway, I was amazed at one of the stats that I read today, namely that the A’s have been held to a run or less in 29 games. That’s slightly less than one in every four. That puts a huge mental strain on a pitcher, and mental strain contributes to physical strain. Therefore, I’ll be curious to see how the A’s handle Greg Smith and  Sean Gallagher the rest of the way, not to mention whether they’ll shut down Dana Eveland now that he’s in Sacramento. The A’s track record has shown that they can identify and develop young pitching talent, and everything we’ve seen from Smith, Eveland, and Gallagher suggests these guys are on the lower end of the tank.

On the other side of things, what else can you say? In July, the A’s scored their fewest amount of runs in a full month since 1979.  That’s the team that lost 108 games. So I figured I’d put out their regular lineup against the one the A’s have been trotting out for most of the past two months. Who would you choose:

Position     2008         1979

C               Kurt Suzuki      Jeff Newman

1B             Daric Barton     Dave Revering

2B             Mark Ellis       Mike Edwards

SS             Bobby Crosby     Rob Picciolo

3B             Jack Hannahan   Wayne Gross

LF             Emil Brown        Rickey Henderson

CF            Carlos Gonzalez     Dwayne Murphy

RF            Ryan Sweeney       Tony Armas

DH          Jack Cust             Mitchell Page

Funny thing is, most of those names on the 1979 club were there when Billy Martin guided the A’s to 83 wins in 1980. Which inspires the question. Hypothetically, how would that Billy and the current Billy (Beane) co-exist?

Enjoy the game.