Oakland Athletics

The Oakland Athletics have a young catcher by the name of Kurt Suzuki who is coming into this second full season as a starting catcher in the major leagues. He had the experience to take the starting job away from Jason Kendall in 2007 and played in 68 games.

Part of that 2007 season was spent learning from Kendall—meaning that Suzuki had a chance to learn the techniques that would make him a solid catcher in the big leagues. On the plus side, the A's were looking for a catcher who could also give them something more offensively.

This article originally appeared on Fantasyfootballmaniaxs.com.

When young pitchers start to struggle or even pitchers who have established themselves in the league, it usually begins with when a runner gets on base.

Usually for the pitcher, it's because they now have to contend with that baserunner  and the batter at the plate. Yet, the problem becomes when they become more concerned with that runner than on base than they are with the batter.

In a key moment in tonight's game against the Yankees, Ryan Sweeney came to the plate with runners on first and second and only one out.

The two runners on base were Kurt Suzuki, who hit an infield single, and Rajai Davis, who hit a solid single just under the glove of Cody Ransom.

There was a meeting at the mound for the Yankees with Andy Pettite on the mound, and up to the plate is Sweeney. The very first pitch is nowhere near the strike zone, but Sweeney swings at it for strike one.

The A's pathetic play continues and it is time to make some major changes. It starts with the manager because these plays are all based on him.

Poor baserunning decisions continue to plague the A's. This time it was Kurt Suzuki not paying attention to what was going on and running just on contact on a ball hit directly to Mark Teixeira for an easy double play.

The lineup for today's game has been posted and here it is:

Jeter(ss)
Damon(lf)
Teixeira(1b)
Posada(c)
Cano(2b)
Swisher(rf)
Matsui(dh)
Ransom(3b)
Gardner(cf)

Some notes courtesy of Peter Abraham:

The Yankees are batting .125 with runners in scoring position at home so far this year.

Brian Bruney has retired 20 straight batters; his last seven outings are 6.2 perfect innings striking out twelve.

Life has meaning again.

No more will Friday nights be spent sitting at home with the sister, wondering what to do. No longer will there be debates with the boyfriend about what to do on a Sunday afternoon.

No longer will the jerseys emblazoned with green and gold be stuffed in the backside of the closet where good clothes go to die.

Why, you may ask?

Baseball is back in business in Oakland and it doesn’t get much sweeter than that.

For the Oakland A's, starting the season 2-4 with the team they have should leave a very bitter taste in their mouths. Especially with the latest 1-0 loss to the Seattle Mariners.

Not only that, but the A's lack of offense turned Trevor Cahill's tremendous start into a loss. Cahill's only mistakes came in the sixth inning. He gave up a solid single to Adrian Beltre for the first hit of the game and the next batter Mike Sweeney, a former A, lined a double to score Beltre.

When Billy Beane went on a totally different approach to start the 2009 season to bring in better offensive players, it was a major surprise.

He brought in Jason Giambi (32 home runs), Matt Holliday (25 home runs), Nomar Garciaparra, and, of course, Orlando Cabrera, who is a solid offensive shortstop, but his defense dramatically improved the A's up the middle.

Yet, even with the excitement of these new players to benefit the offense, there was another contract extension more A's fans should have been paying attention to.