It’s not sign language, but it might as well be.

After circling the bases on his fifth-inning two-run homer, the A’s Yoenis Cespedes stuck out his two index fingers, pointed them at the crowd behind the third base dugout and alternately waggled them up and down.

This series, for the first time, Cespedes had his mother in the stands. She and some other family members had been in St. Petersburg for a series with the Rays late last month, but Cespedes was hurt and didn’t play in the series.

Read the rest of this entry »

The A’s sent Chris Young back to Oakland so the outfielder, currently on the 15-day disabled list, can join the rest of the group working with rehab coordinator Brian Schulman.
Young (left quad) becomes the third player to have been disabled in Monday’s 19-inning, six-hour, 32-minute win over the Angels to be in the Bay Area while the team is in the early stages of a 10-game, three-city road trip through New York, Cleveland and Seattle.
Left-handed starter Brett Anderson (sprained right ankle) and center fielder Coco Crisp (left hamstring strain) never left Oakland to come on the trip.
Read the rest of this entry »

For a man who has been primarily a platoon player in a Major League career that career that dates back to 2007, Seth Smith is looking decidedly un-platoonish these days.

Smith, a left-hander, came into the season having an 11-1 edge in games started against right-handed pitchers opposed to lefties, 368 to 32. Sunday, however, was his fifth start against a lefty this season in 27 games overall, and his third in the last four games.

He’s playing about twice as often against lefties this year than he has historically.

Read the rest of this entry »

A’s catcher John Jaso thought he’d done on Saturday what Adam Rosales did on Friday, hitting a homer as the first man to bat for the A’s against the Yankees.

The ball was long enough, but it was pulled back into the Yankee stadium playing grounds by Ichiro Suzuki, the Yankee right fielder with home Jaso was a teammate in Seattle last season.

When Ichiro came up to the plate in the second inning for the first time, Jaso said he had some choice words for him.

Read the rest of this entry »

In retrospect it’s become increasingly important that the A’s won Monday’s 19-inning, six-hour, 32-minute marathon against the Angels in Oakland, because the negative repercussions from that game just keep mounting.

Outfielder Chris Young is the third player on the team to have suffered an injury in that game that necessitated a trip to the disabled list, Young’s left quad keeping him from running full out.

Already, the A’s had lost pitcher Brett Anderson to a sprained right foot (admittedly, he was already hurting before his 5.1 innings of one-run relief) and center fielder Coco Crisp, who strained his left hamstring while running up the third base line.

Read the rest of this entry »

The last time Adam Rosales had done any serious work as the leadoff hitter anywhere was in 2007 when he was playing in Double-A for Chattanooga.

What worked back then was to “attack the first or second pitch,’’ the A’s shortstop said.

“Generally, those were the best pitches I was going to see all day,’’ he explained.

Read the rest of this entry »

For most starting pitchers, the pregame ritual on the road is the same.

You take the team bus to the ballpark, meaning you’re the last man to get to the clubhouse. You watch some video, go over notes on your opponent and sit down for a conference with the pitching coach and catcher.

Maybe in the downtime you might fiddle around on the iPad or plug the headphones into the iPod and lose yourself in some tunes.

A’s right-hander A.J. Griffin is not from that mold. Griffin spent the better part of an hour in the visitor’s clubhouse in Yankee Stadium being musical, and it seemed as if the Yankees were the furthest thing on his mind.

Read the rest of this entry »

Luke Montz was just trying to be a good teammate Tuesday night.

A veteran catcher on the roster of the Sacramento River Cats, he was on the bench in Fresno when he and his teammates saw plenty not to like about a series of first inning ball-strike calls against outfielder Michael Choice.

Everybody spoke up, more than once. When the umpire had enough, he pointed to the bench and ejected … well, no one was quite sure who got ejected.

“I just jumped up,’’ Montz said. “I wasn’t in the lineup, so it made sense.’’

Read the rest of this entry »

If the cost for winning Monday’s 19-inning monster of a game was a trip to the disabled list, A’s starter Brett Anderson was willing to pay it.

Anderson was supposed to have the night off. Dan Straily had been called up to make the start in his place so that Anderson could rest and be back in the rotation this coming weekend.

That happened, but when the game went extra innings, the A’s began to run out of pitching. Anderson was rested, and at the moment his foot wasn’t giving him any particular difficulty.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Dan Brown (@mercbrownie) with a guest post for John Hickey:

Delighted as Brandon Moss was by his 19^th-inning walk-off homer in the wee hours Tuesday morning, he was no better than the sixth happiest creature from his own household.

Moss’ entire family – wife, sister, two kids and miniature pinscher named Luger – had been waiting in the car for more than 4 hours waiting … and waiting … for the dang game to end.

Read the rest of this entry »