According to this article, Gio's en route to the big club. While I would have preferred to have him stay down just a little bit longer to keep working on his control, he has been dominating AAA at times. I suspect if Meyer didn't have to pitch last night, he would have gotten the start Thursday. Instead, looks like it's Gio's debut. If Eveland gets his control back, I wonder if he comes back up (and Gio goes down) in a few weeks. Well...let's see what the kid can do Wednesday.

it's orton's turn now to start. smart move...we need to see if kyle has progressed much to be either a legit #2 (ours, or to trade) or compete for the #1 job next year. i hope opening up the playbook for him will allow him to play much better than he did as a rookie. orton was one of the best QBs in college at purdue and carved up good defenses regularly. hopefully his mediocre stats before were mostly a result of a) being a rookie, and b) having a majorly scaled back playbook.

whew...at least he won't have to spend the offseason rehabbing from surgery. though it seems certain that he's done for the year. bring on orton - season's over, we need to see if he can at least be the #2 next year. i also think grossman returning is a lock...nobody is going to give him a big contract. we lose nothing by giving him a short, incentive-based deal.

sun times article drops this gem. i had no idea tillman was hurt that badly...ankle injury. man, this game absolutely killed us. harris might be out a month, we lose both CBs, our QB gets dumped, and our SS breaks his hand. well, i guess the move to griese makes more sense, at least for the short term, now. we absolutely cannot have our offense hurt us at all with turnovers for a few games. i hope backus and johnson both are out this week for detroit, or else our defense is in a lot of trouble.

haven't seen anybody come our way from arizona. does that mean no deal was reached and we basically gave him away? as maddening as he had been this year for us, wouldn't he have been a type b free agent, considering how good a reliever he had been for us the past 2 seasons? we could have at least gotten a decent draft pick had we sucked up the cost of keeping him the rest of the year.

did anybody catch this article, mentioning chavez having a nerve problem, not tendinitis? maybe this explains why he's been swinging the bat much better the last few weeks? the article is really encouraging, pointing out that they've been able to treat him much more precisely for his woes. on the other hand, it means the a's medical staff missed yet another  diagnosis for about 2 months w/ chavvy - i know, its tough to pinpoint things sometimes, but they consistently miss things. does this mean the old chavvy is back? because that would be fantastic.

the consensus is that the braves totally swindled us in the hudson trade - two buck chuck was pretty atrocious (and was traded for nearly nothing this past week), cruz was inconsistent (though he netted us a potential lefty starter (or trade bait) in halsey), and the oft-injured and ineffective dan meyer. but it seems meyer was finally getting healthy this spring. i remember reading accounts of how everyone thought he was throwing the ball exponentially better in spring training. and his stats this year have been very encouraging (albeit a tiny sample size). 3 starts:
AA: 4 IP, 4H 3ER, 3K, 4BB
AAA: 5 IP, 1ER, 4H, 2K, 1BB; 5IP, 0ER, 4H, 5K, 1BB
if meyer can stay healthy and perform somewhat consistently at AAA this year, i think he can regain his blue-chip prospect status. it looks like he's got the shoulder problem that has plagued him since the trade fixed...at least for now. while our farm system is pretty weak in general, we might have some interesting pitching prospects - especially if meyer is back. which is a big if.

well, we got some depth on the d-line, now. i'm curious how much money we gave him. 4 year deal, according to espn. so long as it isn't for a ton of money, i like the move. adams can definitely play, and will fit in our DT rotation nicely, especially considering the loss of boone, probably scott, and maybe tank for a few games.

seems like bobby decided not to make alterations to his swing as previously expected. i was disappointed to hear about this, because i think he could still get lots of power w/ a more compact stroke while not killing his back. that being said, i guess it is hard to make a change like that after swinging one way your whole life. however, crosby, even with those hellacious cuts, was around a .300 hitter until he got to the majors. so part of me thinks he can still be a good hitter w/ some adjustments while swinging for mars. is it better pitch anticipation? learning to trust his hands more so he waits a little longer? willingness to go the other way on outside pitches? better command of the strike zone? seems like these are all flaws crosby has, but all things he could improve on, even with his swing. thoughts?

because the giants had one of the 15 worst records in baseball last year, they keep their #1, right? we get a sandwich + the giants 2nd round pick, correct? if that's true...well, that blows. i never liked that rule. considering the parity in the middle of MLB (the top teams usually stay the same), there isn't a hell of a lot of difference between having the 10th worst record and the 17th worst record. i understand protecting the absolute worst teams - limiting it to the 5 worst teams makes sense. oh well, at least the giants 2nd round pick will be a high one.