by Michael Duca

Oakland A’s update: The first thing you have to do if your willing to work for A’s General Manager Billy Beane and manager Bob Melvin is you have to understand that your going to be used in the way that you might be used by other ball clubs.

The A’s were big on versatility, depth, platooning,and are using guys in ways that will allow them to succeed and A’s catcher Derek Norris might end up hitting .400 at best this year but he might get 400 at bats and hit .325. Which is much better than hitting the extra 100 at bats or 150 at bats.

A’s third baseman Josh Donaldson is very solid at third base particularly when you consider that he started his career as a catcher and not that long ago, he came up to the Major Leagues as a catcher. He’s hitting .270 you don’t want to let that fool you because his on base percentage is a much higher number than that.Donaldson is driving the ball with authority and he’s driving the ball out of the ball park and key times.

A’s manager Bob Melvin not one to gush about the success of this team and it’s almost laughable to think that Melvin has a single gush in him anywhere. Melvin is as low key as you can possibly be. He let’s his players go out and have fun and do the gushing for him. Guys come and guys go and they don’t miss a beat, Johnny Gomes is there and is the heart and soul of the team and is gone and immediately a player like Josh Reddick now is that heart and soul.

SF Giants update: Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow was not coming right out and saying that the Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki was getting stolen signs which lends to some suspicions as to why Tulowitzki is hitting at a .550 clip at home at Coors Field and Kruk said you have to wonder, “Tulowitzki right now is swinging the bat better than anyone in this game, and I’m thinking it’s so good that you have to be a little skeptical how he does it.”

It’s the third week of May and almost the fourth week of May and Tulowitzki is hitting over .550 at home. You have to chew on that one for a little while for that to make sense to you. He’s hitting over .550 at home, that means for every hit that the A’s Josh Donaldson has got this year Tulowitzki has two.

Signs when stolen are stolen by third base coaches from catchers who don’t hide them well enough, that’s not that easy on a consistent basis. So if there is signs really being stolen their being stolen by the aid of some kind of equipment some place in the ball park.

The biggest sign stealing controversy was the 1951 New York Giants who went on a rampage to catch the Dodgers after being 13 games out in August and it persisted there was some kind of sign stealing going on despite the fact that there was the evidence that the Giants had hit better on the road than they did at home.

In both cases in Denver or at the Polo Grounds which you have to realize is centerfield is about a mile and half away and in Denver the scoreboard is in left field and it’s not in center field. So it’s not that easy to hide somebody.

What you have to have there is have a spotter scope and a high powered set of binoculars because if you zoom in close enough to see a catcher’s signs your going to have to have them on a tripod in order not to wobble so much that you can’t see.

There may be little proof on how Tulowitzki is doing it but he’s hitting a super human skill this month.

Michael Duca does A’s and Giants commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com