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Archive for July, 2012
The A's and the rest of the league are finally seeing why Yoenis Cespedes was such a hot commodity over the winter.  Over his last 10 games, Cespedes has only gone hitless once, while hitting .439 with five home runs and 17 RBI since the All-Star Break.Finally healthy and starting to pick things up offensively, Cespedes has been a major reason why the A's currently find themselves sitting atop of the wild-card standings.  His presence in the middle of the lineup has been beneficial not only to himself, but others around him.  Without him there manning the fourth spot, Josh ...
It's almost unbelievable that the bargain basement Oakland Athletics can still find a way to contend in today's baseball market. In what many expected to be a throw away rebuilding year for the other team by the Bay, the A's have emerged as a contender in the AL West and are slowly creeping up on the Texas Rangers in the division standings.We see the A's success now on paper, but what exactly has keyed their improbable run this season?Begin Slideshow
The Oakland Raiders haven't made the playoffs since 2002, but after coming off an 8-8 record in 2011 the silver and black are poised to make a push for the post season in the upcoming campaign. The Raiders have been the butt of countless jokes for many years due in large part to how sorry JaMarcus Russell turned out to be.  Not since Celine Dion, Nickelback and Avril Lavigne had regular radio play have the Raiders been even remotely good. For much of the decade Sebastian Janikowski was Oakland's most potent offensive weapon. A sad reality? Yes. However, all the jokes ...
It only took five hours, but the Oakland A's managed to remain in the lead for the American League wild card on Monday.Jemile Weeks' sacrifice fly scored Brandon Inge, and the Oakland A's defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 in 15 innings for the Major League-leading 12th walkoff win. The win came in spite of the fact that the A's struck out 21 times on the night and left the bases loaded in the ninth and 10th innings. Jordan Norberto got the win with a scoreless 15th inning, but credit must go to the entire Oakland bullpen.Eight innings, eight zeroes on ...
Training camp brings excitement and optimism for all 32 NFL teams. For the Raiders, it represents the newness of a completely new regime and the intrigue of seeing how Reggie McKenzie and Dennis Allen can go about establishing their own culture of discipline and hard work to the Oakland Raiders.Camp also allows lesser-known players the opportunity to shine. The Raiders have had no shortage of athletes who have shown flashes of being players who could make names for themselves on Sundays in the fall. As such, I present to you a collection of the best training camp/preseason players the Raiders ...
Owner Mark Davis and general manager Reggie McKenzie were in Napa, Calif. to watch the first practice under new head coach Dennis Allen. The new era of Oakland Raiders football got underway on a beautiful sunny day in wine country and finished on a positive note for the defense when rookie defensive tackle Christo Bilukidi picked off a Terrelle Pryor screen pass and returned it for a touchdown.Allen believed the Raiders had a pretty good day of practice, but there was plenty of room for improvement. Once Allen goes back to watch the video of practice, he will see a ...
In 2011, the AFC West champion needed just eight wins to make the playoffs, but with a revamped division set for 2012, this year's winner will need to do better than that.While the term "must-win games" is grossly overused throughout the season, there still are a number of games each team can identify on their schedule as games they can't afford to slip-up in if they have playoff aspirations.For the Oakland Raiders, we've identified six games that the team needs to capitalize on if they hope to return to the playoffs for the first time since 2002. Now obviously, if ...
The combination of two Chris Carter errors and Wei-Yin Chen's pitching proved too much for the Oakland A's as they dropped the series finale to Baltimore, 6-1. Travis Blackley took the loss, giving up five runs on six hits and four walks in five innings pitched. The key sequence occurred in Baltimore's four-run third inning as an error and walk led to Adam Jones's RBI double and Matt Wieters followed with a three run home run. For the A's, their bats were held mostly in check by Chen, who set a record for Taiwanese-born pitchers by striking out 12 Oakland hitters in ...
At the last checkpoint, the Oakland A's were 39-42 at the midway point of the season. On pace for 78 wins, they have gone a blistering 16-3 since to move to 55-45 and are on the verge of taking the lead in the American League wild-card standings. For the month of July, they are 18-3 and show no signs of slowing down.What is all the more remarkable about this turnaround is that is has happened without many of the cogs people expected the A's to need to have any kind of chance to contend for anything in 2012. For starters, ...
Yoenis Cespedes drove in three runs, Chris Carter hit his eighth home run in just his 18th game and Bartolo Colon threw 5.2 shutout innings as the Oakland A's rolled to a 6-1 win over Baltimore at Camden Yards. The win moved Oakland to a major league best 18-3 in July as they can move into first place in the Wild Card standings with a loss by the Los Angeles Angels tonight.Colon was not exactly dominant, but he made enough quality pitches to keep Baltimore from scoring. He scattered seven hits with one walk in his 5.2 innings while striking ...