by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

SAN JOSE–The San Jose Sharks who struggled in November are putting together now with their fifth straight win at SAP Center on Saturday night against the St.Louis Blues one of the most successful teams in the NHL. The Sharks have a challenge they will play their next three games on the road all in the Southland against either the Kings or the Ducks. The Sharks who played the Kings in the playoffs last season it would seem that the Sharks have to go through the Blues to get to the next round in post season there a real testing ground going on here.

These two teams are good rivalry and they showed it playing tight hockey on Saturday night to an overtime win 3-2. The Sharks will play almost every Saturday in January at home and by then there will be no football as the regular season there is almost finished. Then more fans will be focused on the Sharks at that time and this is a time for hockey. This is the end of December and this is what people rally to see and what it’s all about.

Oakland A’s continue to make more moves: The A’s who traded catcher Derrick Norris last week to the San Diego Padres but right now it’s difficult to tell who’s going to be the catcher on opening day. At first base the A’s traded Brandon Moss, second base former Athletic Alberto Callaspo will no longer be there now with the Braves, Brett Lawrie will be at third, the only thing I can tell you Lawrie will be the sure thing at third base as A’s general manager continues to deal players.

The A’s traded Josh Donaldson last month to Toronto, A’s veteran Coco Crisp remains with the team and the other veteran is Josh Reddick but after that it’s hard to tell who Beane might keep or trade away. The pitching staff is a bunch of young kids A.J. Griffin, Jarrod Parker, Sonny Gray is the number one pitcher and they traded away Jeff Samardzija, and Jason Hammel. This is almost a completely different team.

Basically in the Bay Area during this Christmas time there’s two sales going Macy’s and the Oakland A’s and I’ve never seen Beane go this active in wheeling and dealing he’s unloaded most of his All-Stars. You always makes some trades but this is almost like a new team and come to think of it it is a new team. Beane is a smart guy who always puts the team in a competitive mode, however this year is going to be very tough.

The Texas Rangers are going to be very healthy, the Angels are loaded, the Mariners have improved a lot now, they have Nelson Cruz behind Robinson Cano in that line up. The M’s have got great pitching with Felix Hernandez and company. The A’s might run out of stream this year but you could never second guess what Beane has up his executive sleeve he has a couple of trades left in him.

With Crisp and Reddick around in the lineup there are some veterans left on this team, you got to have a sense of presence who stays with the team. At least you can sell some jerseys of players that fans know about anyway. There has to be some continuation of the past, Crisp is at the end of his career but is still a good player, when Crisp is healthy he gets hurt a lot. Reddick is a gold glove and he’s a good player too.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez does News and Commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com