Well, the Oakland Athletics finished up another ho hum campaign during the 2011 season, ending with a record of 74-88, 22 games behind the AL West pennant champs, the Texas Rangers. Dumpy season aside, there are still plenty of things to be thankful for when it comes to our beloved Oakland A’s. Before you turn all doom and gloom about those paupers from the east bay, consider the following:

1. Jemile Weeks – Batting .300 with 22 stolen bases in just 400 at bats? That’s the kind of production that the typically offensively inept A’s should swoon over. Weeks is a bona fide table setter. He’s just 24, and had not been called up prior to the 2011 season. He’s still a work in progress, striking out about three times as often as he walks. But Weeks is the kind of offensive talent that A’s fans have been hungry for. Now if they could only put some serious power behind him in the batting order, maybe we won’t have to suffer quite so many 2-1 games.

2. Gio Gonalez – Trevor Cahill(notes) stole the spotlight in 2010, but 2011 belonged to Gonzalez. Gio is a 20 win pitcher if you put him on a team like the Yankees or Texas, and other GMs around the league know that. His name has been tossed around heavily during the winter meetings, and rumor has it that they’ll trade him if they can’t get a stadium deal done soon. But even if Gonzalez is traded (and I’m hoping he isn’t), he’ll return top flight prospects in any deal.

3. There’s movement on the relocation front – Of course, if you’re an Oakland resident this is kind of bittersweet news. Personally I’d rather see a competitive San Jose Athletics than a bankrupt Oakland squad, or worse yet, see the franchise flee to some place outside norcal altogether.A few weeks ago, the San Jose City Council approved a land option for the A’s to purchase some real estate down in San Jose that they could use for a new stadium. Sure, it’s minimal progress, and a lot depends on whether the MLB wants to get behind the deal, but at least it represents some forward movement.

4. There’s a new labor agreement – It’s hard to cheer for the A’s if there’s another work stoppage. Hey, that’s something isn’t it? More specifically, the new labor deal allows the A’s to receive revenue sharing through 2016 if the stadium deal remains in limbo. That will help stabilitze things if it takes an ecnomic rebound to get a new stadium approved, be it in Oakland, Fremont, or San Jose.

5. The Giants imploded – When life’s got you down, there’s always schaenfreude. The epic collapse of our bay bridge rival was perhaps the sweetest highlight of the 2011 season. And to the Diamondbacks, of all teams? Call me petty and spiteful, but I had enough of the manufactured personalities on the Giants some time in mid 2010. Shave the beard, drop the act, and play baseball.

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SAGINAW – Former Arthur Hill and Central Michigan University star Curt Young is returning to the Oakland Athletics as their pitching coach after one year with the Boston Red Sox.

Young was the pitching coach for Oakland from 2004 to 2010, but left after the 2010 season to take a job with the Boston Red Sox.

After the season, however, Boston parted ways with manager Terry Francona and Oakland fired pitching coach Ron Romanick. Boston gave the Athletics permission to interview Young.

During Young’s time with Oakland, the Athletics had the league’s lowest ERA (4.03) and batting average allowed (.257).

According to the San Franciso Chronicle, the Red Sox will pay for a large part of the salary for Young, who had one year remaining on his Boston contract.

Young is familiar with just about all of the Oakland pitchers, including Gio Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill, Brett Anderson and Dallas Braden.

Young, a member of the Saginaw County Sports Hall of Fame, pitched for Oakland for 10 years and has spent 23 years in the organization.

sfgate.com: “I started with Curt. Why not continue with him?” Gonzalez said. “I think it’s a great thing. It feels like he just took a year off, took a vacation.”

“The roots run extremely deep,” Braden said. “His pedigree is Oakland all the way. He’s back in his element. He knows what wave to catch.”

OAKLAND, Calif. — Ricky Romero pitched a three-hitter to extend his career-high winning streak to five games, Colby Rasmus homered and scored three times and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Oakland Athletics 7-0 on Thursday night.

Edwin Encarnacion and Brett Lawrie had RBI singles while Jose Bautista doubled and scored in the fourth when Toronto scored three times off Oakland starter Trevor Cahill to break the game open.

Romero struck out six and walked two while recording his second shutout this season and third of his career. He had to pitch out of a series of jams early then retired the final 13 batters he faced.

The A’s got only two runners to third base and were shut out for the 12th time this season.

Rasmus, acquired from St. Louis as part of an eight-player trade on July 27, doubled and scored in the second then hit a towering two-run drive off Cahill in the fourth. The home run, Rasmus’ third with Toronto and 14th overall, caromed off a sign hanging from the second deck in right field and gave Toronto a 4-0 lead.

He also singled leading off the sixth for his first three-hit game since the trade.

Before getting to Cahill, Rasmus had been mired in a 16 for 71 funk (.225) with his new club.

Encarnacion, meanwhile, remained one of the hottest hitters in the American League. The Blue Jays designated hitter singled in Bautista in the fourth and scored on Rasmus’ home run. He has reached safely in 17 consecutive games.

Romero (12-9) did the rest, although the left-hander labored at times.

He pitched out of a two-on, no-out jam in the second then wriggled out of trouble again after Oakland loaded the bases in the third by getting hot-hitting Brandon Allen to foul out to first. Allen, called up from the minors on Saturday, was in a 9 for 16 stretch before popping out.

Romero, who shut out the St. Louis Cardinals on four hits June 6, settled down after that and allowed only one hit the rest of the way. He improved to 4-0 in five career starts against the A’s.

Adam Lind added an RBI single off Cahill in the fifth and J.P. Arenciba drove in two runs in the sixth to chase the Oakland right-hander, who is in the worst slum of his career.

Cahill (9-12) allowed seven runs and nine hits over 5 1-3 innings and lost for the seventh time in his last 10 starts. Since beginning the season 6-0, Cahill is 3-12 with a 5.30 ERA.

The A’s fell to 2-5 on their homestand.

The Oakland Athletics (49-62) come into St. Petersburg today, opening up a three game series against the Tampa Bay Rays (58-52). These two teams faced in a four-game series last week on the West Coast, and I’m sure the Rays would love to imagine that series was all a dream. The Athletics rolled over the Rays, winning three of the four games by a combined score of 34-20.

When that series ended, the Rays were in a tailspin. They hadn’t won a series since July 3rd, and they had just been outscored over four games by the team that had scored the 2nd fewest total runs in the American League (425, currently). While the Athletics’ rotation is above average and young, their offense is anemic. To put it in perspective, their best hitter is Josh Willingham, and his season line is .248/.331/.458 (.789 OPS).

Since that series, the Rays have started getting hot again; they have won two series in a row, beating both the Mariners and Blue Jays. And most importantly, their offense has seemingly woken up with some help from rookies Desmond Jennings and Robinson Chirinos, scoring 35 runs over those six games. The Rays have some favorable pitching matchups in this series, so it’s a good opportunity for them to keep rolling. 

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Friday, 7:10pm: Guillermo Moscoso vs. Jeff Niemann
Saturday, 7:10pm: Brandon McCarthy vs. Alex Cobb
Sunday, 1:40pm: Trevor Cahill vs. David Price

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