For a team that had little to no expectations, the Oakland Athletics have provided many shocking moments and feats in 2012. At the halfway point, the surprises continued to throw many into disbelief. Now as the season comes to a close, the perplexity of how this team continues to keep themselves in the headlines has switched from confusing to astounding. Here are the 10 biggest surprises of the Oakland A's 2012 season.Begin Slideshow
The Oakland Athletics had "serious interest" in Randy Wolf before he agreed to sign with the Baltimore Orioles, according to Roch Kubatko of MASN Sports. Even though they missed out on Wolf, another veteran pitcher just entered the market and could be an interesting option. According to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, the Milwaukee Brewers have placed Shaun Marcum on waivers. Throughout his entire career, Marcum has put up solid numbers. He is not what I would call overwhelming, but with a career 55-37 record and 3.71 career ERA, you know that he must be doing something right. The problem ...
With final preseason games soon underway, many roster spots around the league are locked in or still up for grabs. With not much time left, coaches will use the final preseason game as well as final practices to determine final roster spots. One of the more competitive competitions coming out of northern California is the battle between linebackers on the Raiders' defense. With a new defensive coordinator in Jason Tarver, the Raiders have almost a new-look defense, getting rid of three cornerbacks and also linebacker Kamerion Wimbley. Providing Rolando McClain can avoid spending time in jail, McClain and Phillip Wheeler are most likely ...
In 2012, the Oakland Raiders will take on two of the most difficult divisions in all of football: the AFC North and the NFC South.Five of those eight teams made the postseason last year, and the Raiders are sure to have their hands full when they meet up with all of them head on.According to NFL Nation Blog, (via ESPN.com), Oakland has the 18th-most difficult schedule in the NFL.The Raiders take on the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 7 and the Cleveland Browns in Week 13, two matchups they should hopefully win with ease.But the rest of their schedule is difficult. ...
I do not want to write this without omitting the contribution Bartolo Colon made to the 2012 Oakland A's. Whether he was clean or dirty throughout the year, no one knows, and frankly, I do not care.His 10 wins were tops on the team before Major League Baseball suspended him for the remainder of the 2012 regular season (50 games total). But that said, Colon was the most consistent pitcher on the A's staff until last Wednesday.Sadly, we can only speculate as to how much of that was due to performance enhancing drugs. There is no doubt, however, that his ...
When Bartolo Colon tested positive for using (according to the Associated Press) testosterone, he was suspended for 50 games. Seeing that the suspension began on August 22, it effectively ended his season, if not his career.Colon was having his most effective season since winning the 2005 Cy Young Award and was a huge boost for the Athletics' rotation. Losing him may have been a fatal blow for the young, overachieving Oakland squad.Instead, they have won four of the first five games since the suspension and remain in place for one of the two Wild Card spots. Two of the wins ...
Carson Palmer and the new-look Oakland Raiders are like oil and water—they just don't mix. As we all know, the Raiders' organization underwent a massive transformation last year when Al Davis died. Reggie McKenzie became the team's general manager, and he chose Dennis Allen to be the head coach in 2012. Allen then brought in Greg Knapp to be the new offensive coordinator. Sounds good so far, right?The only problem with all of this is that Palmer isn't the kind of quarterback that fits in Knapp's box. Knapp has been a big proponent of utilizing athletic quarterbacks that can roll out of the pocket, ...
The Oakland Raiders cut 12 players earlier today, including quarterback Kyle Newhall-Caballero and fullback Manase Tonga. The team has until Friday to cut 22 more in order to reach the final 53-man roster limit in advance of the regular season.As the Silver and Black seek to build on its 31-20 win over the Detroit Lions on Saturday, it will be interesting to see how the preseason wraps up and the team's identity takes shape. So before the Raiders square off with the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday night, let's take a quick look at four of Oakland's most important backups entering the week.Begin ...
The Oakland Raiders are a relatively young team, which makes it imperative that Carson Palmer has an exceptional year. If the Raiders end their nearly decade-long playoff drought, they will need to rely on the experience of the few who have been there before. Thirteen-year veteran defensive tackle Richard Seymour will need to play composed in his starting role on what should be a much-improved defense. The golden legs of both Sebastian Janikowski and Shane Lechler are essential to the battle of field position, which has become an overlooked part of today’s game. Palmer, however, is undoubtedly the single ...
The Oakland Athletics have been among American League postseason conversations since their breakout 19-5 July that caught the attention of baseball critics everywhere—not to mention stimulating the whipped cream industry in the East Bay Area by coining the temporary slogan, "Come for the game, stay for the pie."A's fever started to spread following the four-game sweep of the highly-favored New York Yankees in mid-July, putting an exclamation point on their surprising midsummer upheaval that catapulted them into American League wild-card contention.Some called it a fluke. Others called it luck.The A's called it "The Bernie."Originating from the film Weekend At Bernie's, the unorthodox celebration came in the form ...