The A’s have some decisions to make in the next week, and not all of them are clear cut.

Between now and Friday, outfielders Chris Young and Coco Crisp and starting pitcher Brett Anderson are likely to come off the disabled list.

It seems a no-brainer that Dan Straily will be the odd man out in the rotation. He has made three starts with Anderson out, and is due to make another against Texas Wednesday, two days before Anderson (sprained right ankle) is first eligible to come off the disabled list.

Young and possibly Crisp could come off the disabled list on Wednesday, and while it’s certain that Michael Taylor, who has an .063 average and hasn’t driven in a run, will be sent down, choosing between the other two candidates, Luke Montz and Daric Barton, will be a matter of just what kind of flexibility A’s manager Bob Melvin wants.

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Grant Balfour has rung up a save in every game he’s pitched this month.

Before Saturday night, that meant both of them. Pitching for the first time in six days, Balfour put two men on but pitched out of trouble to secure the A’s 4-3 win over Seattle that brought a five-game losing streak to an end.

And if there is anything that underscores the problems the A’s are having these days, it’s that they had not been finding chances for Balfour to do his ninth-inning thing.

He hasn’t blown a save all year, but he only has six chances. Either the A’s are behind late, which has been the problem in recent days, or they’ve had more than a three-run lead, which was the case much of the time in a 16-12 April.

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There’s an old adage in baseball that the batter who is a biggest threat to a pitcher is someone who’s spent some time catching that pitcher.

It played out Friday night when John Jaso, who caught Hisashi Iwakuma last year in Seattle, had two of Oakland’s four hits off Iwakuma in seven innings in a 6-3 Seattle win.

Jaso doesn’t care about the numbers. He said it doesn’t work that way, at least when he is the catcher involved.

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As most of you know, before I took over covering the A’s this year, I used to cover the Mariners.

Before covering the Mariners, I covered the A’s way back when, but that’s not the issue in front of us.

The thing is, there were plenty of friendly faces when I made a quick pass through the Seattle clubhouse before Friday’s series opener.

Guess what they wanted to talk about? The home run that was denied the A’s Adam Rosales Wednesday night in Cleveland when video replay inexplicably went against him in the form of acting crew chief Angel Hernandez.

Now the Mariners didn’t want to go on the record. They don’t want to pay a penalty for speaking truth to power. There is an uneasy coexistence between players and umpires, and tilting the balance isn’t productive.

But they were plenty willing to talk about the play, which some of them saw live on a flight back to Seattle from Toronto.

“Man, what was that all about?’’ one player said. “That call was as bad as I’ve ever seen.’’

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The one thing A’s watchers can take out of this week’s series sweep at the hands of the Indians is that Oakland players didn’t blame Thursday’s loss on Wednesday’s botched homer call by umpire Angel Hernandez.

The one, the A’s said, had nothing to do with the other.

And win or lose, that’s how it should be. The baseball season is too long and to unrelenting with games virtually every day to spent too much mental work on one bad result.

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I mentioned in this space last night that A’s manager Bob Melvin earlier this season had been hyping the idea of addition video replay for baseball, specifically “boundary calls,’’ fair or foul down the lines.

It’s safe to say he’s backing off that in the wake of Wednesday’ video denial by the umpiring crew of a game-tying Adam Rosales home run that was clear to anyone with video access hit off the railing above the left field wall.

The umpires said the video was inconclusive, ruled Rosales had only a double and instead of a 4-4 tie, the A’s wound up with a 4-3 loss.

Asked about expanding replay Thursday morning, Melvin was preaching a different sermon.

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Earlier this year, A’s manager Bob Melvin was talking about the need for more instant replay in games, including “boundary calls,’’ fair or foul down the lines, to be included in elements that could be reviewed.

You have to wonder what the point of expanding replay is is when reviews go awry as often as they seem to when all umpires are asked to review are home run calls.

The A’s lost what seemed to be a self-evident game-tying ninth-inning homer when the umpiring crew in Progressive Field watched video and somehow didn’t see what everybody in the ballpark – including the Indians – took as gospel, that Adam Rosales ball carried over the left field wall.

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UPDATED

If there was one player in the A’s spring training camp that seemed the least likely to make it onto the Oakland roster in 2013, Daric Barton would have gotten many, if not most, of the votes.

He is a left-handed hitting first baseman with minimal power and he is on a team where Brandon Moss is a one-time outfielder-turned-first base who is left-hand and who has plenty of power. It was Moss who had taken Barton’s job last season.

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If there was one player in the A’s spring training camp that seemed the least likely to make it onto the Oakland roster in 2013, Daric Barton would have gotten many, if not most, of the votes.

He is a left-handed hitting first baseman with minimal power and he is on a team where Brandon Moss is a one-time outfielder-turned-first base who is left-hand and who has plenty of power. It was Moss who had taken Barton’s job last season.

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Tommy Milone walked out of the Oakland clubhouse Tuesday seemingly having put the 1-0 loss to Cleveland behind him.

His teammates weren’t so fortunate.

They not only didn’t hit behind Milone, the A’s not getting a runner to second base, but they didn’t play defense behind him, either.

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