Thirteen days ago, I showed you with precision and in-depth analysis how the Oakland Athletics were, to tear it directly from the headlines, "Oakland Ass." Someone more clever than the fetid little heap of DNA you call an author came up with that, and at the time, nobody argued because nobody could. They were 0-6, they were giving up six and a half runs a game while scoring barely two, and they looked a hell of a lot like the 1899 Cleveland Spiders were making a comeback.
And now you see why I am the place to go for baseball thinking—the Elephants are now asking the Shaqian conundrum about ass and taste, and they are asking it with a malevolent glint in their collective third eye.
Those 0-6 A's beat Houston in extra innings for their first win, then lost the next day, so the snark-drenched knee-jerkery was holding fine. And then they won, and won, and won some more. They haven't lost since, in fact, and Sunday's 3-2 walk-off against Detroit (Mitch Moreland degloving Jeimer Candelario to score Matt Olson from second) was the kind of WinTF that good teams get, not ones wearing assprint jammies.
There will be hard times for the A's this year, because everyone gets them, but they are back to looking, well, like the team everyone keeps thinking is due to make an actual October run for a change. For you serendipity fans, the team that was allowing six and scoring two is now, on their current eight-game winning streak, scoring six and allowing two. To beat this metaphor flatter than Jose Mourinho's CV, they've stopped being the Spiders and are now giving off hints of being the 1954 Clevelands who won 111 games. They could not help but stop themselves, and now they cannot be stopped.
At least not by human means.
Their game tonight against the newly infected Minnesota Twins has been postponed and rescheduled, and Tuesday's doubleheader looks no more likely. Three members of the Twins' traveling party, one of them outfielder Kyle Garlick, have tested positive for the business, and before you start smirking about vaccine-reluctant Andrelton Simmons, who tested positive five days ago, let's try to keep in mind that COVID is a poor issue upon which to exhibit your keen sense of schadenfreude. The Twins have already lost their last two scheduled games against the Los Angeles Fightin' Trouts of Anaheim because of the 'rona, so this episode seems unlikely to end any time soon.
But as to the Athletics, their remarkable babyface turn is now on hold while they reacquaint themselves with COVID's backhand. They are getting to relearn that the virus is still the commissioner of baseball and all the other sports as well, and everything is day-to-day. Just ask Jose Mourinho.
Still, there is something exhilarating about any team, let alone one in plague times that has to decide quickly whether to back up the truck or fill it with gifts, going from epochally awful to sensational without any kind of transition. Oakland jump-started Houston's fast start and then killed it (the Astros have lost seven of their last eight and their lone highlight is Kyle Tucker ducking flying trashcans), and then they have victimized the deeply underclubbed Arizonii and Detroits. Hey, the schedule's gonna schedule, and at this point, any schedule at all should be regarded as a luxury.
What I can say with metaphysical certitude is this: The A's are cured ... until they're not, and I’ll monitor them with my usual half-assed (or Oakland-Assed) attention span. That, and Bob Melvin, the game's longest serving current manager, is now off the hot seat. That is, unless futbolista Billy Beane thinks the next A's skid might be the harbinger for a new face and a fresh approach in these turbulent times.
Yep. Jose Mourinho. He's been out of work for hours, and he's ready as hell.
