A 20-win run one August/September. Four consecutive playoff appearances. Cory Lidle. Ted Lilly. Scott Hatteberg. The Oakland Athletics have, for the last few years at least, been a team of the Second Half. A Post-All-Star Break juggernaut. Guys who would spend the spring and early summer months hitting .240 or tossing 4.50 and an even record will go on batting tears or start tossing sub-3 ball while winning decision after decision. Every year there’s someone on the A’s squad that destroys the expectations on them and lifts the team into the playoffs. And this year?
This year there’s Rich Harden. Before the Break, Harden was a measly 3-5 in 16 starts. His ERA was over 4.50. He wasn’t on the trade block or getting sent to Sacto to play for the RiverCats, but he wasn’t exactly lighting up the box scores, either. And after?
Only two starts, sure… but he’s 1-0 with 16 2/3 innings pitched, 2 earned runs, six hits and 5 walks with 11 strikeouts. That’s a 1.08 ERA. Most important? The win. He grabbed only three wins in his first 16 starts and jumped out of the cannon after the Break to defeat a by-no-means-soft-hitting ChiSox team. His all-important K/BB and K/9 ratios since the Break are 2.20 and 5.94, respectively.
Not that Harden is a complete unknown. He’s been the A’s hottest pitching prospect for a couple years now. Mike Scioscia, when his Anaheim Angels first faced Harden last season, remarked that the A’s had “cloned Tim Hudson.” He’s got a 95+ mph fastball and an effortless delivery that makes him seem like he’s tossing catch with his dad, not smoking big league hitters. Even in his lackluster first half, he has a K/BB Ratio of just under 2 and a K/9 ration of just under 9. A good starting place for a guy about to explode.
With two starts (against Chicago and Toronto) and a 1-0 record, Rich Harden has gotten his Second Half off to the shotgun blast of a beginning that will propel the White Elephants of Oakland past the Rangers, the Angels, and the rest of the American League… right into the World Series.
Last year Ted Lilly came out of obscurity to lead the charge, and the year before that Cory Lidle made a name for himself as a second-half pitcher non pareil and Scott Hatteberg earned the reputation of a clutch hitter on a team with a history at first base that is damn difficult to live up to. There is a time each year that A’s fans love to be in Oakland, at the House That Catfish, Rollie, Reggie, Big Mac, Rickey, Eck, Hudson, Mulder and Zito Built… and that time is now.
Let the Second Season begin.