Around the A's ballpark these days, you hear a lot of crazy speculation. Like, with Bobby Crosby out, how about Nomar Garciaparra?
Crosby's not coming back soon, and even though Nomar is a superstar no more (he's hitting .262 for the Cubbies), he is a big-time player with the pennant-race experience the A's lack.
It might work. But why not think bigger? Biggest?
Barry Bonds.
The Yankees slapped around the A's over the weekend, two games out of three. It's scary when you compare the Yankees' Murderers' Row with the A's Banjo Blvd.
Derek Jeter led off Sunday evening's game by slashing Barry Zito's first pitch over the fence.
"Don't worry," said someone in the press box, "Kendall will answer back."
Jeter has 15 homers. A's leadoff man Jason Kendall has zero. That's not to single out Kendall. Whatever is ailing the A's -- losers of four of their last five -- won't be cured by Dr. Longball.
Unless they get Bonds.
The Giants would love to dump Barry's salary, for this month and for 2006, and his bizarre diva act has to be wearing thin with everyone at 24 Willie Mays Plaza, from the top down.
The Giants could trade Bonds and not tell him, let him find out from the team's Web site. Sweeeet.
Besides, the Giants' goal every year is to be in contention for a playoff spot into September, and they've already accomplished that.
It would be a big financial gamble for the A's, but with a big upside. What if Bonds got smart and spent part of his rehab working on bunting? Even waddling and limping down the line after bunts to the left side against the shift, Bonds could hit .500.
A panic move by the A's? Absolutely, and if the A's aren't in full panic mode, they should be. Crosby out. Rich Harden hurting. Mark Kotsay a zombie. Zito absolutely hammered Sunday.
The A's say they expect Crosby to miss only three weeks, but amateur orthopedists like me can't help but wonder if the A's are being overly optimistic.
Likewise, the A's are giving Sunday as the target for Harden's return, but injured power pitchers are wildly unpredictable creatures.
The A's would be crazy to gamble on Bonds, who might not hit another home run, but who's crazier than Billy Beane?
And if you want evidence that a suspected steroid slugger, now presumed to be clean, can come back from 'Roidville to be a productive power hitter, you have to look only at Jason Giambi.
This is the mystery of the baseball season so far: How Jason got his groove back.
Giambi even has gained back most of his old muscle mass and definition after shrinking down to Marco Scutaro size. Giambi isn't the comeback kid, he's the re-incarnation ragamuffin.
Kendall led off the bottom of the first Sunday with a bouncer to Jeter at shortstop. Jeter threw high to first. Giambi leaped to make the catch and came down on the bag just ahead of Kendall. Last year, the thin Giambi would have hung in the air too long. This year, he's quicker back to earth.
The Oakland fans boo Giambi with gusto, but you won't find anyone in either clubhouse to speak ill of the big lug. In the face of conclusive evidence that he juiced, Giambi didn't go Raffy on us, claiming someone spiked his Whopper, or hid behind his lawyer's skirt. Giambi still sidesteps 'roid questions with equanimity.
"It's impossible not to like the guy," says a team insider of the man who almost ruined the Yankees.
Besides, if you say anything bad about Giambi, you'll have to fight A's third-base coach Ron Washington and about 30 of his relatives, after they got flooded in New Orleans and Giambi quietly slipped Wash a check for $20,000.
While the pitching-thin Yankees are banking on Giambi and the other big Yankee crankers, the A's seem to be hoping their mystical esprit de goof can keep them afloat until their key guys get healthy.
The Yankees like to think they're above relying on a loosey-goosey clubhouse to produce wins, but had the A's swept the weekend series, George Steinbrenner would have fired the Yankees' clubbie and hired Chris Rock.
The A's can't worry about New York, though. They have to worry about themselves.
After the A's got blanked Saturday by a Yankees pitcher (Aaron Small) from nowhere, Eric Chavez bristled, "We've faced a lot of average pitchers this season ... and haven't done anything against them."
Could that be because the A's offense, graded on the playoff-team curve, is well below average?
Barry Bonds, please pick up the white courtesy phone.
E-mail Scott Ostler at
sostler@sfchronicle.com.
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