Thursday, August 25, 2005

Back from a Month of Nothingness

I just realized that it's been a month since I last posted here. I spent a week in Ireland (which was fantastic) and went to two weddings, but otherwise I've just been pounding away at work. Busy times here.

In my silence, the A's went on their (mostly) annual wild winning streak and then came back to earth a bit, and now appear (we hope) as if they might have more life in them yet. So are the A's as bad as they were early in the year or as good as they were in their hot streak? My answer, not surprisingly, is that they're probably somewhere in between -- but closer to the "Good A's" we saw at the beginning of August than that "Fantastically Awful A's" we saw back in April and May.

Here are my brief thoughts from back on March 11 and the pre-season AL West ESWL Projection from Baseball Crank. I'd say the A's are better off right now than the "maybe-if-everything-breaks-right longshot" that Crank suggested, and as A's fans we really ought to be happy with how things have played out so far.

If I told you back in March - or even at the end of May - that the A's would be tied for the Wildcard lead on August 25th, you (A's Fans) would have signed up for that in a second. All things considered, you have to be happy about the A's performance this year and cautiously optimistic about this last month-plus of baseball.

Just sit back and enjoy the ride -- don't let the anxiety and second guessing ruin all the fun of the race.