By Morris Phillips

The A’s surprisingly successful spring ended Saturday with a loss and notable demotion, but neither development casts a cloud on the team’s mood or prospects heading into Monday’s opener against Texas at the Coliseum.

Not with Barry Zito’s return to baseball after a year off followed by Saturday’s announcement that the veteran will accept an assignment to Triple-A Nashville providing so much inspiration for the team and the coaching staff.

The 36-year old Zito pitched well this spring for the A’s, finishing with a 4.79 ERA in seven appearances, but with no shot to crack the A’s starting rotation or overtures from other major league teams, the veteran proudly accepted his assignment content just to extend his baseball career.

“I didn’t stay in shape for a year to come back here and go all in and go sit at home,” Zito said.

“I’ll take the wife and kid and have some fun with it.”

With all the cyclical trades and changes, it’s often hard to view the A’s as a cohesive team.  But they are just that, leading all major league teams with wins this spring (22) and scoring the most runs (199 in 35 games) in the process.

Accordingly, ever-faithful A’s fans better fall in line and figure out who’s playing where and what’s their place in the batting order.

But on Saturday, a crowd of better than 29,000—filled with fans of both the Giants and the A’s—just needed to remember a pair of familiar names: Zito and 39-year old Tim Hudson.

The pair, along with Mark Mulder, helped comprise the front end of the A’s formidable rotation in the mid 2000’s.  But there they were on Saturday still plying their trade.  Hudson started for the Giants and fooled the A’s for five innings in San Francisco’s 2-1 win that concluded the Bay Bridge Series.

Hudson picked up the win by scattering four hits and two walks across those five frames, keeping the A’s scoreless despite giving up doubles to Ike Davis and Ben Zobrist that could have led to big innings for Oakland.

When Hudson departed, the A’s didn’t have much success with the five Giants relievers that followed either.  Only a run scoring sacrifice fly from Brett Lawrie in the sixth kept the A’s from being shut out.

And right after Hudson called it an afternoon, Zito appeared, pitching a scoreless sixth inning for the A’s.  The veteran entered and left to applause—from fans of both teams.

“That was kind of cool,” Hudson said.  “All we needed was Mulder to warm up and come in after him.”

NOTES: The A’s starting rotation isn’t set, but all signs point to Jesse Chavez, Kendall Graveman and Jesse Hahn completing a group that will be headed by Sonny Gray and Scott Kazmir.  With Sean Doolittle on the disabled list, former Washington National Tyler Clippard will begin the year as the closer.

Jarrod Parker—who is expected back in June—along with Sean Nolin and Josh Reddick will begin the season on the disabled list.

The A’s appear to better situated defensively this year in comparison to last with Sam Fuld and Craig Gentry supplanting 35-year old Coco Crisp in center field.  Crisp is rehabbing and working with legend Rickey Henderson in hopes that he can successfully transition to playing in left.

Ike Davis, who had an impressive spring offensively, and Brett Lawrie will be the A’s starters at first and third respectively.  Ben Zobrist will play primarily at second base with occasional starts in left and at first base.