Being an Oakland A's fan over the past week has had its high and lows. While the A's picked up Octavio Dotel they also lost two of three from hated San Francisco and averaged just 4.3 runs a game stinking up the Coliseum. A's draft picks slugged it out in the College World Series and the injury bug has infested a corner of the A's clubhouse. Again.

A brief note on the offense; the A's have score 140 runs in 26 games in June. That's just 5.4 runs a game. That includes five games in which the A's score in double digits. PATHETIC.

In the neutral corner, how odd was it to watch Landon Powell and Kevin Melillo of South Carolina take on Kurt Suzuki and Jason Windsor of Cal State Fullerton on Friday? Then, for the Championship Series, Fullerton faced Huston Street. Kind of hard not to root for Fullerton and the stories that went along with their season.

Some links.

A link to the final game.

A cool story about a team shrink for CSF.

Nice story about an imposing mother.

Recaps and box scores of the CWS.

There's a cool line in here about Landon Powell and chalk.

A chat session from Baseball America with Huston Street.

Anyway.

Pitchy Rich Harden apparently will not miss a start. Whether that has to do with Tim Hudson being out or the lack of severity in regards to his injury; dunno.

Kirk Saarloos sent Ramon Castro packing on the 25 Man Roster. Saarloos came over in the Chad Harville trade earlier in the season. Saarloos is a big Greg Maddux fan, so, he wears number 31. Look for Saarloos and Justin Duchscherer to tandem start in Hudson's absence.

Arthur Rhodes is complaining about back soreness. More than likely from having his head up his ass and sticking his feet into his mouth at the same time. Rhodes would look good in a Houston Astros uniform, wouldn't he?

Bobby Kielty was in the line-up until a few minutes before the first pitch, yesterday. Kielty aggravated his rib cage during batting practice. You have to wonder how much damage Bobby Crosby really did to Kielty in their collison earlier this year.

Keep an eye out for JUSTIN TIME articles and banners in the next few weeks as Duchscherer and Lehr start settling into their roles. In June, Duchscherer has been scored upon in 5 out of 10 outings. Joe Morgan would point to his lack of a 90's fastball, we'll point to regressing toward the mean.