How much trouble is Oakland in?

Oakland somehow always seems to find a way to get red hot in the second half of the season. One of these years they're going to figure out that the baseball games in April, May, and June actually count and when they do they'll be a dangerous organization.

Or, one of these days they won't have a red hot second half and be a non-factor in the division...

There pitching has been much worse than expected--Haren and Blanton have been disappointments.

Actually, the pitching hasn't been that bad; they're 12th in the bigs in fewest Runs Allowed, T-16th in ERA (and within 0.09 of 11th). The problem has been offense -- 23rd in Runs Scored and Slugging, and only 20th in OBP (compare that with 14th a year ago). Recently, Beane felt that defense was more undervalued than OBP, hence their trend in the past few years toward defense, namely the Kotsay/Bradley/Payton outfield, the Chavez re-signing (not that Chavez wasn't well worth re-signing for his bat alone -- he's been one of their best performers at the plate this season), their Mark Ellis fetish, etc. It seemed to work, as Oakland was #1 in defensive efficiency in 2005... but this year they rank only 15th, as Bradley and Kotsay have visibly declined with the glove, and Crosby has disappointed. Sacrificing offense for defense may have been a winning strategy on paper, but it only works when the defense is as good as billed; so far, Oakland's hasn't been, and they're 23-29 to show for it.

Until a team establishes themselves in the West and pulls away, I'm not counting Oakland out.

I second Ben's opinion. No team in the West has impressed me so far and all of them have holes to fill.