Credit the A’s New Look to Great Dye Job

The Oakland A’s were 44-43 at the All-Star break, 19 games behind Seattle in the American League West, and the team many picked to win the division was, as Keith Jackson might say, stumblin’ over the rumblins’.

Outfielder Johnny Damon and closer Jason Isringhausen, both free agents after 2001, were supposedly on the trading block. Many thought the A’s were fielding offers for first baseman Jason Giambi, the 2000 AL most valuable player and free-agent-to-be.

“Every night I’d go home and think, ‘Should I start packing my things?”’ Damon said.

Giambi thought the team was at a crossroads.

“Do we dump everyone and say we don’t have a chance?” he said. “Or do we go get a guy?”

The gap between reality and perception may have been as wide as today’s gap between the Seattle Mariners and the Angels. A’s General Manager Billy Beane was never close to breaking his team up, despite its 8-18 start and failure to find solid footing until July.

Instead, he made the best trade-deadline deal in baseball, acquiring right fielder Jermaine Dye from the Royals on July 25 in a three-team swap that sent Oakland minor leaguers Mario Encarnacion, Jose Ortiz and Todd Belitz to Colorado.

Dye, a Gold Glove winner in 2000, solidified Oakland’s outfield and the cleanup spot behind Giambi. Through Thursday, Dye was batting .300 (60 for 200) with 12 homers and 50 runs batted in in 53 games for the A’s; the team’s cleanup batters hit .209 with 10 homers and 58 RBIs in 104 games before then. Oakland is 41-11 since the deal and clinched the wild-card spot last Sunday.

“Billy [Beane] really set the tone when he got Dye,” Giambi said. “I didn’t get better pitches to hit, but when I took my walks, he picked up the RBIs.”

Said Damon: “Jermaine took us to the next level. Since he’s been here, we’ve taken off.”

The deal sent an important message to the players.

“Not only are we not going to trade anyone, we’re going to add somebody,” Beane said. “I thought we had a good team. We just decided to take a break when the season opened, while that team up north was playing so great. That contrast created some anxiety, but ultimately, good teams reveal themselves.”

The A’s won 91 games and a division title last season and appeared stronger entering this season, even before the Mariners took off. That’s why Beane remained patient.

“The beauty of baseball is there’s no such thing as a Cinderella--162 games will reveal the good teams and the pretenders,” Beane said. “Midnight always strikes.”

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Giambi, who is batting .339 with 35 homers, 43 doubles and 111 RBIs, could be closing in on a second straight MVP award, but he is no closer to signing a new contract with the A’s. A six-year, $91-million deal looked possible in spring training, but the sides couldn’t agree on a no-trade clause Giambi wants.

“I have no idea what’s going to happen,” Giambi said. “Everything has been so fun, I don’t want to think about what could be. I’m not going to talk about next year until this year is done.”

Beane remains confident he can retain his franchise player, and the fact Giambi loves playing in Oakland with his brother, Jeremy, on a perennial contender gives Beane an advantage. But there is always a danger of losing Giambi if the small-market A’s get into a bidding war with such teams as the New York Yankees and Mets.

“I always wear rose-colored glasses, and in regard to Jason’s situation, they’re crimson red,” Beane said.

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Just when you thought the turmoil in Boston couldn’t get much worse

“There used to be an old forbidden code of conduct that everybody used to abide by, the writers, the players,” Kerrigan said. “They used to have a saying up on the wall: ‘What you hear here, what you say here, stays here.’ Obviously, that’s no longer the case.”

The incredulous reporters, led by Boston Globe national baseball writer Gordon Edes, were so incensed they boycotted the Red Sox clubhouse after the game.

“These players are so self-absorbed,” said Providence Journal-Bulletin writer Sean McAdam, “I don’t think they missed us.”