A's score two in ninth to win

The Oakland A's scored two runs in the ninth inning on Twins closer Joe Nathan to take a 3 to 2 victory Saturday. Nathan beat himself by making a throwing error trying to get the lead runner at third base on a sacrifice by Ryan Sweeney. Bobby Crosby and Emil Brown both scored on the play to give the A's the win. Brown after the game, "I was shocked. He would've had to make a perfect throw to third in order to get Bobby. The play was in front of me, so when I saw the ball get away, I wasn't going to stop." The A's took the lead in the four game series with the Twins 2 games to 1.
Mark Ellis entered the game as a pinch hitter and struck out.

Slowey handles A's

The Twins beat up the A's 12 to 2 on Friday night using 20 hits and lights out pitching from Kevin Slowey. Slowey pitched six innings allowing only two runs and tallying ten strike outs, he picked up his fourth straight win.
Mark Ellis did not play.

A's beat Twins

The Oakland A's Dana Eveland allowed only two runs leading the A's over the Twins 3 to 2 on Thursday night. The Twins are in a heated battle with White Sox for first place in the Central Division. The A's Mark Ellis has now missed five straight games with his injury.

Ellis named to 40th Anniversary team

Oakland A's fans voted Mark Ellis to the 40th Anniversary team. He is the only active player to receive the honor. "It's a cool honor," Ellis said. "You look at the names on that list, it's a storied organization. So to be on that list and be with those guys, that's really neat."

A's take series with Angels

The Oakland A's used 14 hits and scored seven runs to beat the Angels 6 to 5 on Wednesday night. The A's took the series 2 games to 1.
Manager Bob Geren said Mark Ellis was wanting to play but, "He's still not ready. It's gonna be at least another couple of days." Ellis injured his right shoulder during the game against Seattle. Ellis did enter the game to pinch run.

Angels Lackey beats A's

"We'll just have to try to get it done tomorrow. That's all you can do," Oakland A's manager Bob Geren comments after the 5 to 1 loss to the Angels. John Lackey threw a one run complete game to improve his record to 11-2 on the season. Lackey continues to be one of the best pitchers in baseball this year.
Mark Ellis is listed as day-to-day.

Athletics over Angels

Oakland pitcher Dallas Barden pitched the A's to victory over the Angels Monday night. Barden threw seven innings allowing only one run in the 2 to 1 victory. "As a staff, we really try to stress that and give us every opportunity to get outs any way we can," Braden said. "As a guy who's not going to light up the radar gun, you look for outs in other ways when you're struggling or even when you're going good. One of the facets of my game I like to practice is controlling the running game and giving Zuke a chance to throw a guy out when he does decide to take off."
Ellis is still out and may return soon.

Mariners win, Ellis out still

The Seattle Mariners beat the Oakland A's 8 to 4 on Sunday. Jack Hannahan hit two solo homers for his first career multihomer game. Mark Ellis is still day-to-day from his injury.

A's win, Ellis feeling better

Dana Eveland returned to the big leagues from Triple-A Sacramento on Saturday and pitched seven shut out innings to give the A's a much needed 5 to 1 victory over Seattle. "It was a good day all around. It felt real good to get out there again and to win again is a bonus," Eveland said. "And we'll try to do what we can to win a series, hopefully." Eveland was sent down to the minors in early August to work on his mechanics.
Mark Ellis did not play due to his injured right shoulder and is listed as day-to-day. "It feels much better, so I'm happy about that," he said. "Hopefully, it won't be long until I'm back. It was still a little tight and a little sore before I got it worked on, but it feels good now. It doesn't look like it's anything serious." Let's hope not, this blog suffers without it's main character.

Ellis leaves game early

The Mariners beat the Oakland A's 7 to 5 Friday night. Mark Ellis was 0 for 1 before leaving the game in second inning with right shoulder pain. It may have been from a hard slide into second base during Thursday game. Ellis talked about how his shoulder feels, "Sometimes, it just takes a little while to get loose, and it wasn't really loose during batting practice, and certainly it didn't feel real good in my first at-bat. And then as I'm making my throws in between innings, [I realized] that I wouldn't be able to make a play up the middle or even turn a double play, so that's when I began to realize I should probably let somebody else go up there." Manager Bob Geren said that Ellis would be day-to-day.

A's win in Seattle opener

The Athletics opened the series with the Seattle Mariners by winning 2 to 0. The A's benefited from good pitching by rookies Greg Smith and Brad Ziegler. Veteran slugger Frank Thomas was ejected in the sixth inning after complaining about striking out to the umpire. Bob Geren, "It's the old arguing balls and strikes -- you're not supposed to do that I guess. But he's [Thomas] been around a long time ... he knows."
Mark Ellis was 0 for 3 with a walk.

A's have no luck in series ending with Twins

With the 3 to 1 loss on Wednesday, the A's dropped the third game of the Twins series and set the franchise record for 11 consecutive series losses. In all of baseball history, no Athletics team has suffered the number of series losses as this 2008 club. Manager Bob Geren, "Today was one of our better games. We played really good baseball today. We just got beat. ... Every day it's a different story. Today we just didn't get any breaks."
Mark Ellis was 1 for 4 with a walk and a run scored.

Minnesota plays station to station baseball

Kevin Slowey pitched masterfully for the Twins on Tuesday allowing only one earned run in seven innings. The Twins pounded out sixteen hits in the 13 to 2 victory over the A's. Mark Ellis spoke about Nick Punto's hard slide into second base in the sixth inning that upended him,"I never have a problem with that. You never stop playing the game. As soon as you stop playing the game, it'll come back and bite you. They were just playing hard. They play the game right here, always have." Ellis also talked about the A's season, "It's been tough. It's been really tough. We haven't won a lot of ballgames. The only other stretch I can remember was in 2005, early in the season — but I think this is probably a little bit worse. It's not a lot of fun. It's been a long time since we've won a series," Ellis said with a sigh. "It'd be nice to win tomorrow and have a nice plane ride to Seattle."
Mark Ellis was 2 for 4.

Ellis hits first pitch home run

Mark Ellis hit the first pitch off Twins Nick Blackburn into the left field seats. It was Ellis's third career leadoff home run, and helped lead the A's to a much needed 3 to 2 victory over the Twins on Monday. Ellis was excited to get things started for his team and expressed wanting to get more offense going, "We haven't been scoring a lot of runs, period, so to put one up there that quick was nice," Ellis said. "Blackburn's around the plate a lot, so I was looking for something to hit right away. We're going to have the opportunity to be spoilers. We need to get back to playing how we played the first month and start scoring some runs. It was nice to get out early tonight."
The low point in the game came when A's pitcher Justin Duchscherer left the game with pain in his right hip. "It's terrible," second baseman Mark Ellis said. "Not just for the team, but for him personally. He's been having such an incredible year. When he's our starter, we're 100 percent sure we're going to win that game." The injury problems continue for the A's.
Mark Ellis was 1 for 3 with an rbi and a run scored and a walk. The home run was his 12th of the year.

Chicago tallies runs

Chicago used nine hits to score 13 runs in their victory over the Oakland A's on Sunday 13 to 1. The A's Gio Gonzalez struggled early and dug a hole the A's couldn't overcome. Mark Ellis had the day off and replacement Eric Patterson was 0 for 4 on the day.

Chicago White Sox in first place in Central

The Chicago White Sox have been in first place in the American League Central most of the year. Pitcher John Danks will help keep them there with his superb pitching. Danks allowed only one run on six hits in six innings pitched for the White Sox win 2 to 1 on Saturday. Danks talked about his career success against Oakland, "I don't have any secret. I feel like I just have better games against them. I don't know why, because they're a tough team. I'll take it. It's always good to win here in Oakland. We haven't done that over the last few years."
Mark Ellis was 0 for 4 with a walk.

A's walk off in Chicago

The Oakland A's used home runs by Mark Ellis, Jack Cust, and Kurt Suzuki to beat the Chicago White Sox on Friday night 6 to 4. After the game Suzuki talked about wanting to get the game over without going into extra innings, "We have a day game tomorrow, we didn't want to play extra innings." The Sox had 19 hits in the game but the A's amazingly held them to only four runs.
Mark Ellis hit his 11 home run of the year with two outs in the eighth. He was 1 for 4 with an rbi and a run scored.

Pena homers in 12th to beat A's

It took 15 pitchers, four hours and twenty four minutes, tweleve innings, and a home run by Carlos Pena for the game between the Rays and the Athletics to end in a 7 to 6victory for Tampa. Additionally, A's pitcher Brad Ziegler had his scoreless innings pitched record broke by B.J. Upton in the ninth inning. The A's were hoping to win a series for the first time in more than a month. They played hard but came up short. Mark Ellis was 1 for 3 with a run scored and a stolen base.

Tampa guts out win

The Rays scored the go ahead run on Ben Zobrist double in the seventh inning winning Wednesday night 3 to 2 over the A's. Mark Ellis was put back into the lead off spot and went 2 for 4.

First place Rays take on Athletics

The American League East division leading Tampa Bay Rays were in town Tuesday night to take on the Oakland Athletics. The Rays are having a great year despite the team having several serious injuries to key players. Oakland has been struggling as of late and looked to Gio Gonzalez to pick them up a much needed victory. He did just that when the A's beat the Rays 2 to 1. Gonzalez picked up his first major league victory by allowing only one run in five innings pitched. Brad Ziegler pitched the ninth inning and picked up the save. He talked about making his scoreless streak look real easy, "I'm glad it looks that way, because it sure doesn't feel that way."
Mark Ellis was 1 for 4.

Detroit wins

Detroit's Nate Robertson cruised to an easy victory 6 to 1 Sunday by allowing only one run in 7 2/3 innings pitched. Huston Street continues to struggle for the A's allowing three runs on three hits in one inning or relief pitching. Mark Ellis was 1 for 4 with an rbi.

Detroit electrify's the A's

The game in Detroit was delayed by a thunderstorm in the area. In fact, lightning struck the lights above the scoreboard. Detroit generated their own electricity on the field with their bats pounding out 13 hits and scoring 10 runs to beat the visiting A's 10 to 2 Saturday night. The A's continue to struggle and Mark Ellis was 0 for 4 with two strike outs.

The A's win, the A's win

The Oakland A's headed to Detroit to take on the Tigers Friday night. Lead by the great pitching of Dallas Braden and Brad Ziegler the A's picked up a much needed victory 4 to 2. Braden allowed only 2 runs in seven innings pitched and Ziegler extended his scoreless inning streak in the eighth and ninth and picked up the save. Ziegler streak is now at 37 innings without allowing a run to begin a career. Mark Ellis was 1 for 5 with an rbi in the game.

Blue Jay sweeps and Ellis errors

After another loss to the Blue Jays Thursday 6 to 4, the A's are suffering from a tremendous losing streak that has now stretched to ten games. The second bagger Mark Ellis had a few words to say, "If we do one thing right, we do something else wrong. If we hit the ball, we're not pitching. If we pitch the ball, we're not hitting. So it's just the way it's been for all 10 games. That's how you get a losing streak."
The game was characterized by poor defense with Ellis picking up his fourth error of the season. "Crosby made a great play and I'm on the run," said Ellis. "I just couldn't find the bag. I tried to catch the ball and find the bag at the same time. I got it on the second try but he had already beat it."
Ellis remand calm after the game discussing what the A's need to do moving forward, "A lot of our guys hit the ball well tonight. Hopefully we'll start to hit the ball better. It's day-to-day. You just have to take it day-to-day. You can't look at the long [run], you just have to do you're thing every day, put your work in and hopefully the results will come."
Mark Ellis was 1 for 5 with two strike outs.

Blue Jays 5 Athletics 1

The A's brought up top pitching prospect Gio Gonzalez for Wednesday's game against the Toronto Blue Jays. Gonzales pitched well allowing four runs on four hits in six innings pitched. Oakland lost the game 5 to 1, and now has dropped 18 of their last 20 games. Oakland catcher Kurt Suzuki on the Gonzalez's debut, "The guy is 22 years old, and the sky's the limit for a guy like that. He works hard and competes when he's out there. That's all you can ask for from a young guy."
Mark Ellis was 0 for 3.

Athletics lose....again

With another loss to the Blue Jays Tuesday night 4 to 3, the Athletics have now lost eight games in a row. Huston Street blew the lead by allowing the game winning single with two outs in the ninth to Blue Jay's Kevin Mench. It's possible that Street will be moved from the closer position. A frustrated Coach Geren after the game, "When you have a chance to win and you don't win, it's always frustrating. We've had a rough week. It would have been a big one to win and get us going."
Mark Ellis was 1 for 4 with an rbi.

Jays Halladay may be pitcher best pitcher in baseball

Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Roy Halladay continues to dominate hitters in the American League this season. Halladay shut down the A's on Monday night allowing only one run in eight innings. With the 6 to 1 Blue Jay win. Halladay picked up his 13th victory of the season. The A's have lost 14 of their last 16 games.
Another blow to the Oakland offense comes with the news that third baseman Eric Chavez will have season-ending surgery to repair his right shoulder. Oakland is reeling out-of-control.
Mark Ellis was 1 for 3.

Errorless streak ends for Ellis

A throwing error by Mark Ellis in the bottom of the third inning against the Boston Red Sox has snapped the A's second baseman 57 game errorless streak. It is the third error in 496 chances on the season and his fielding percentage is now at .994. Ellis continues to be the top fielding second baseman in the league. The Red Sox completed the sweep of the A's Sunday winning 5 to 2. Mark Ellis was 1 for 4.

Red Sox pounds the A's

The Boston Red Sox's pounded out 14 hits amd scored 12 runs to beat the Oakland A's on Saturday 12 to 2. The Red Sox were lead by Kevin Youkilis 4 rbi's and stout pitching from Jon Lester. The A's continue to struggle offensively and pitching. Mark Ellis was 1 for 4 with a pair of strike outs.

The record is set

Friday night in Boston, Mark Ellis officially set the record for most game played by a second baseman in Athletics's franchise history. "I just found out a couple of days ago," Ellis said. "That's neat. It's a very storied organization, so it's fun to be able to be on that list. It's a neat feeling for sure." Ellis is in his sixth year with the A's. "It means the organization likes you because you've been here a long time," Ellis said. "You've had a little bit of success. To me, it's cool, because it's the only organization I've ever known in the big leagues. So it's a neat record."
Ellis passes the mark set by Dick Green, also from Rapid City, S.D. "Dick Green is a friend of mine. He lives in my hometown. So that's cool, too," Ellis said. "Growing up, [I didn't know him]. But once I got drafted and started playing with the A's, we got to know each other. They had some reunions back in Oakland. So I got to know him pretty well. He's a great guy. So it's extra special for that."
Mark Ellis is a quite, hard playing, defensive minded veteran player that many people haven't heard of. Ellis is the prototypical blue collar ball player. He hustles, makes plays that don't show up in the box score, and is a good club house guy. Ellis commented about going pretty much unnoticed. "That's fine with me. That's kind of the way I like it. Being on the West Coast, people out here don't see us play a lot, because the games are so late for [the East Coast] guys. But I enjoy it. I enjoy just going about my business and trying to help the team win. I don't need any of the media attention and all that stuff. So it's kind of nice."
Shying away from award talk and gold glove possibilities for this year Ellis said, "Awards are usually voted on by different people. So it doesn't mean a big deal for me, so as long as we win and we make the playoffs. That's fine with me."
Manager Bob Geren on Ellis, "He is [under the radar], and it's not fair to him,. Because if he had more attention, he'd have a Gold Glove or two. He really would, and he deserves that because he really is the best second baseman in the league. And not even discrediting Polanco or Grudzielanek, guys who've gotten it in the past; they're excellent players, too. But he is. Maybe he's not flashy enough to get the attention of other people because he's so textbook with what he does. But if you see him play for any extended period of time, you'd vote for him for a Gold Glove, no doubt. You see him play a series once or twice a year, you might not see the flashiness that draws attention. His style is very by the book, does everything right. As a manager, that's what I want."
Ellis was 2 for 5 in the game against Boston Red Sox Friday night. The Red Sox sneaked out a win 2 to 1 in 12 innings.