LINKY SEE LINKY DO

We'll drop some linakge on you so you don't have to listen to us ramble about how bad the Angels are and that you shouldn't jump and down about the recent 'trend'.

Over at Baseball Prospectus Gary Huckabay has a conversation with a certain AL GM who may or may not have ties to the Oakland Athletics.

Will Carroll's Under the Knife looked at the Mid Season (which is a misnomer since the mid point of the season is after the 81st game and before the 82nd, but we're not going to hold that against Will Carroll when everyone in the industry feels the All Star Break is the mid point) Health Report

" The A's owe much of their success to a healthy "Big Three." The Big Three owe most of their success to Rick Peterson. Even with an injury to one of Mark Mulder, Barry Zito, or Tim Hudson, there are players in Sacramento ready to contribute or at least place-hold. In the field, the loss of Jermaine Dye for an extended period forces Beane and DePodesta to dig through the laptop looking for a new toy. They usually find one. The questions about the health of Eric Chavez give both concern and hope--concern if the reports are true that he played through a fracture, and hope if that explains his poor performance."GRADE: C

Is this new news or old news? Didn't Chavez have a wrist excuse last year? Chavez has or had foot, back, wrist and shoulder problems. Not to mention the problem with his confidence (and personality), a between the ears problem. You can only report on what you're told. What's Will going to do, get an MRI or wheel Chavez into Radiology himself? At some point you kind of wish the A's had a better list of petty injury/poor performance excuses, or are we close to having therapy listed as a reason to go on the 15 day DL? Really, an injury is an injury, but you can't play when you're injured. You can play hurt, but that just leads to compensatory injuries and the like.

Eh.

Elsewheres...

Alex Belth of Bronx Banter has an interview with Moneyball author Michael Lewis. Notice the part on bad sports writing, which leads us to mention John Shea's throw away piece in the SF Chronicle

"The A's aren't in cruise control like the Giants and need a quick offensive fix if they're to catch first-place Seattle or outlast Boston, Toronto and Anaheim for the wild card..."

The A's are three back of reeling Seattle and eight and a half games ahead of Anaheim in the West. The A's are only two behind Boston in the AL Wild Card with Pedro Martinez and the bullpen about to fall apart. Sure, the A's could use another bat, or they could just play up to their career averages (something Billy Beane has stressed) and they should be fine. In the same article Shea mentions the Shannon Stewart/Bobby Kielty deal and can't take a stand on whether Toronto got the better of the deal.

Also, John Sickels has a few things on Dan Johnson one of those guys the A's have in their farm system that can mash and get on base, but not much else.