The pitching wasn’t bad. Haren threw a fat fastball to Eric Hinske, and that one mistake (3-run HR) was enough to lose the game.

The problem was, once again, the offense. Let’s have some fun with small samples:

The A’s offense per game in their:
Three wins: 9.3 hits, 5.0 walks, 2.0 HR, 6.7 runs.
Five losses: 7.6 hits, 2.2 walks, 0.6 HR, 1.8 runs.

Looks like the A’s have been extremely dependent on walks and homers to score so far. That’s a problem if (a) the pitcher isn’t walking anybody, and (b) you don’t have a lineup with power.

Tonight the A’s had Charles Thomas, Mark Ellis, and Marco Scutaro in the lineup. None of those guys are likely to hit the ball out of the park. The lineup would have a lot more pop with Eric Byrnes, Keith Ginter, and Bobby “get well soon” Crosby in there instead.

I have to add that I really dislike the lineup where Chavez, Durazo and Hatteberg are the 3-4-5 hitters. It’s too easy for the opposing team to bring in a lefty in the late innings work through the heart of the order. It happened tonight with Scott Schoenweis in the 8th inning. It’s almost like taking the most leveraged situation in every game, and handing it to the opponent.

I’d rather see a L-R-L-R lineup, something like this:
Kotsay
Byrnes
Chavez
Kendall
Durazo
Crosby
Hatteberg
Swisher
Ginter/Ellis