Well the Rays took care of their portion of things today.  Now it's the Red Sox turn.  They're up 2-0 in the seventh.  Six more outs and the Halos are dead.

You think Bud Selig is sitting somehwere right now worried that we could have a Phillies/Rays World Series?  Yeah, me too.

Yes, the American League series continue on while the National League Championship Series is ready and waiting.

The Rays send Andy Sonnanstine to the mound to face the White Sox and Gavin Floyd.  Even though I love Nick Swisher, the truth is that I must love Dan Johnson and Carlos Pena more because I really want the Rays to go to the ALCS.  Funny thing is that I'm noticing a huge sentiment that feels that same exact way.  I just like to see teams (and people for that matter) that have been perennial doormats rise from the ashes and become something better.  It's what so many of us think of as that American story, no?

Sonnanstine's season stats are:

Floyd's stats are:

It would appear that the White Sox have the starting pitching edge.  We shall see.

The second game is the one I happen to be more interested in because the Red Sox failed to shove the stake into the hearts of the evil Angels of Anaheim last night.  The Red Sox were so close to ending the Angels season that it nearly pained me to watch them not score with the bases loaded on K-Rod.  It would've been sweet to see his Angels career end that way.  Any way, the task becomes a bit tougher today because the Sox will now have to beat Slingblade Lackey in order to move on.  Man the postseason makes for weird rooting interests.  Who ever thought I'd be cheering for the Red Sox as hard as I am?  That's just how much I can't stomach the team from Anaheim that claims it's really from Los Angeles.

Lackey faces Jon Lester who was remarkably good during game one.  Here are their stat lines from the season:

Let's go Rays!!!!!  Let's Lose Angels!!!!

It's a sad night.  I was rooting for Rich Harden to help the Chicago Cubs stay alive, but alas he did not help make that happen, not even getting through five innings.  I wanted the Cubs to stay alive because I truly wanted to see the North Siders end a century of frustration with a championship.  100 years is long enough for fans to wait for a championship and from all of my experiences, Cubs fans are often classy and modest.  Yeah not winning in forever will do that to a fanbase and who knows, maybe if they had won it this year they would've gone all Red Sox Nation and become a bunch of unbearable a-holes.  Yet I was willing to risk that.  Heck Al Yellon, who runs the SB Nation site Bleed Cubbie Blue, was left completely speechless for maybe the first time in his lifetime.  I poured a cold one out for my homie tonight for that one.

Instead my rooting interest now turns to the Rays and hoping that the Rays wind up winning the World Series.  How can you not love a team that goes from laughingstock to remarkable in one season?  Although it would be pretty cool to see the Red Sox wind up against the Dodgers in the World Series because nothing would drive a Sox fan more crazy than losing a World Series to Manny being Manny now, would it?  Still I don't want to see the Red Sox that close to another title.  Although I am very happy that the Boston team is laying the smack down on the Angels.

Finally, I just want to put something out there.  I completely agree with Nico that Rafael Furcal should be someone the A's take a serious look at this offseason.  He fills a definite need for them and I think he's someone who fills a gaping hole in the A's lineup at the top of the order.  I'm just saying.  And the public pressure on Frank McCourt to keep the Manny show in LA will be huge, meaning he's going to have to open up the wallet for him.  McCourt doesn't know how to do anything without a PR aspect to it, so it should leave the Dodgers strapped in terms of salary availability for anything else.  Pounce, Billy, pounce.

ANers, I just wanted to let you know that we've created a SportsBlogs Nation playoff hub where you can go to instantly see what is happening on the other blogs all around SBN during the baseball playoffs.  We put a widget right under the fanposts in case you find that you forget where it is.  I find it really fun to watch the playoffs through fans' eyes for other teams.

Also, there is now a list of AN fanposts in an almost message board format here.  The URL is at www.athleticsnation.com/fanposts.

Oh and one other thing.  I hope you're reading Paul Depodesta's blog It Might Be Dangerous.  In particular, I really enjoyed this post in looking at how a baseball executive approaches a waiver wire claim.  This seems like classic A's-type of move only he did it for the Padres.

Thanks and Go Rays!

It's been the unlucky 13 for the Oakland Athletics in 2008.  The A's have had 13 different pitchers start at least one game for the A's this year.  You ready for this list?  Joe Blanton, Rich Harden, Justin Duchscherer, Gio Gonzalez, Kirk Saarloos, Lenny DiNardo, Chad Gaudin, Dan Meyer, Josh Outman, Sean Gallagher, Dallas Braden, Dana Eveland and Greg Smith.

Some of those guys were traded, some were injured and some didn't perform up to expectations.  Yet when I look at that list, I see several pitchers who make me excited about 2009.  Gallagher, Duchscherer, Outman, Eveland and Smith could very well be the opening day rotation for our green and gold next year.

And that doesn't even take guys like Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson into account who very well could prove to be ready by the end of spring training next year.  Gio Gonzalez could also very well bounce back and have a stellar spring training.  And Dallas Braden has probably at least put himself in the conversation with his pitching performances of late too.

Now it's probably going to take one or maybe two pitchers to possibly get a bat if that's the route Billy Beane and company want to go.  And with the A's history of having injured starting pitchers, the truth is that the team could probably use as many starting pitchers as possible. 

But it's going to make for a fascinating spring training and the good news is that even if the starting pitchers are all healthy, a few of them will be excellent additions to the bullpen.

Now that you've pretty muc h seen all the A's starters at least once this year, who do you think wind up being the starting five on opening day next year?  Course it won't matter much if Beane can't significantly improve this offense this offseason.  But I'll just pretend for a moment that our offense could somehow approach league average and therefore pretend that the starting rotation will matter.

If the A's miss out on someone great in this next draft to the Texas Rangers, I might just find Travis Buck and give him a wedgie.  I'm just kidding.  It was nice to see the A's keep up their recent hot streak by beating the Rangers in 11 innings.  At the same time, it was disappointing to see Brad Ziegler blow his second save.

I was watching this game tonight just thinking about how fantastic the A's bullpen is going to be next year.  I mean, Smith was out after five innings tonight, throwing 97 pitches over those frames, yet the A's bullpen just threw up goose egg after goose egg.  Blevins, Devine and Street did the job and while Ziggy blew the save with the bomb to Blalock, Embree and Casilla then followed up with two more scoreless innings.  It's not easy to do that in Arlington.  And just think, there is a good chance that someone like Braden will wind up in the pen as well.  If the A's could ever get a lead with the abysmal offense, they should win quite a few games.  The problem will be getting a lead.

Yet again, Travis Buck and Cliff Pennington came through.  First Pennington with a very nice opposite field double and then Buck with a splendid AB that plated Pennington.  I've got to admit that it's awesome seeing Travis Buck back.  He was a complete mystery to me as to why he struggled this year and I think the A's could become a lot better offensively in 2009 if Buck can regain his 2007 form.

I've got to admit that I didn't see what happened to Ryan Sweeney as I was caring for my daughter since my wife can't with her broken ankle.  Anyone want to fill me in on it?

So the A's are back in second place with five games left to play (the Baltimore rainout has been cancelled so the A's are playing 161 games this year).  I would say that if the team can finish in second place despite all the injuries, trades and issues this year, that would be quite an accomplishment, wouldn't you?

A's and Rangers tied at 3 in the 10th.  This is an intense battle for second. 

Ziggy gave up a game tying homer in the bottom of the ninth to Hank Blalock.

LET'S GO A'S!!!!!!!

A's up 3-2 in the sixth inning as Smith made it through five with some wildness.

LET'S GO A'S!!!!!!

The battle for second place in the AL West rages on.  If you had told me before the season started that the A's starting pitcher who would make the most starts would be Greg Smith, I would tell you that the A's would be in line for last place in the AL West.  It's not that Greg Smith isn't a good pitcher, it's just that I would honestly have believed that the team was destined for mediocrity at best.

Smith starts tonight in Arlington against Kevin Millwood.  Can you believe that there are only five games left after tonight?  Any way, here is what the starters' stats look like this year:

Smith's issues this year have obviously been the free pass.  Millwood's issues this year have related to the fact that he's been very, very hittable.

The A's have been really damn good lately.  They've won three in a row and seven out of the last 10.  Course they're doing it when it doesn't matter at all any more and I'd almost prefer that they get a better draft position.  I think Smoak was taken one pick ahead of them last year.  Imagine if the Rangers wind up right there again this year and steal someone the A's could've used.  Any way, I'm not going to complain about the team playing good baseball, I guess I just wish that it happened a lot sooner than this.

Here are the lineups for tonight:

This September has been fun seeing Buck come back up and not look completely lost at the plate.  Hopefully it was just an aberration with him.  It's also been fun to watch Cunningham up with the big club.  2008 is almost in the books already.  Wow, seems like it was just yesterday I was talking about a Tigers/D'Backs World Series and the Mariners finishing above the A's in the AL West.  D'oh!

LET'S GO A'S!!!!!!!

Yes, I know it isn't like it's 100 billion comments...

But early today at approximately 1:21 p.m., whiteshoes40 made the one millionth comment on Athletics Nation.  Congrats on being that special shopper, whiteshoes40.

Yes, Athletics Nation started on November 6, 2003 and in less than five years, enough A's fans have felt compelled enough to chime in one million times, in diaries and FanPosts and gamethreads and interviews and DLDs.  It's probably technically over a million if you include the original typepad version of the blog and the initial scoop version.  But this includes at least the last three years.

I'm extremely proud to have started all of SportsBlogs Nation with this blog.  The Oakland Athletics were the epicenter of it all.  And that's how it should be, not that I'm biased at all.  Heh.

I want to say thank you to all of you who make AN special - all the front pagers - Nico, baseballgirl, monkeyball, louismg, notsellingjeans, tajadib, grover, salb and devo.  I also want to thank Billy Beane, Lewis Wolff and all of the A's organization for giving Athletics Nation some amazing interviews over the years.  But most of all I want to thank every single A's fan who makes AN so unique and beautiful.  Yes, this community is a beautiful and unique snowflake, contrary to what Tyler Durden says.

Thank you for supporting this community through everything and continuing to make this the best sports community on the Net.