by Charlie O Mallonee

OAKLAND–After putting together that three game win streak in Tampa Bay and one against Detroit in Oakland you talk about positives regarding the A’s. When you look at the overall things are still not great the club is 17-30 for the season and they are in last place in the A.L. West. The A’s are 13 games behind Houston that’s the down news.

The good news is they’ve won three games in a row that’s the longest winning streak of the season and that’s not the best thing you could say about a team but they haven’t had many winning streaks. Matter of fact when your previous winning streak was only two and you’ve won three you should be happy and that’s where the A’s are right now.

It’s kind of turned things around from where they were, their prior streak was four consecutive losses, they have lost eight of nine and they have spent 18 days now in fifth place. This three game win streak all of a sudden started to make them and the fans and even some pretty cynical reporters think maybe there’s some hope on the other side of this of what has been a dyer situation.

With the Yankees coming in on Thursday night the A’s really need to focus on the Tigers in this series and they conclude this series on Wednesday afternoon. The A’s faced Tigers pitcher David Price who threw shutout ball against A’s. They have four games coming with the Yankees and it’s going to be a tough stretch.

They’re really going to have to rely on pitching and the one thing the A’s have had go continually well for them throughout this whole dyer straights has been that the starting pitching has remained strong. If you look right now the starters have not allowed a run in the last three games and that streak ended tonight because they did give up a run to the Tigers on Tuesday night’s game.

They had gone 20.2 innings without giving up a run for the starters. That’s the thing that your looking from the starting pitching, they are 4-6 with a 2.55 ERA for the last 13 games. The starters 3.33 ERA which is the best in the American League, now your saying “wow the best in the AL how are they in last?” They also have two shutouts in the last three games which is always a help, the problem in the pitching department for the A’s has been the relief pitching.

Charlie O does the A’s podcast each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen below for the podcast