4 games, 2 teams, 1 Bay - Giants vs A's

Well Bay Area, here we are set to enter baseball's all-star break with two of the top teams in major league baseball.  Before the Giants were hit by the injury bug, this four game series looked to be epic.  Now, especially with the A's recent power pitching acquisitions (one an all-star), I see a huge green and gold advantage as tonight kicks off game 1 in Oakland.

We Giants fans are easily reminded of the 1989 bay bridge world series that saw the A's sweep the Giants after the Loma Prieta quake took a bite out of candlestick park.  Though it seems like earthquake weather of late, the only thing looking shaky is Giants pitching and hitting.  They struggled to beat a San Diego Padres team that's ten games below .500.  

The last month has seen the #1 power ranked Giants come crashing back to earth and the question in everybody's mind is have they righted the ship.  Brandon Belt returns and Pablo Sandoval is now out with an elbow bone bruise. Honestly, I think without lead-off hitter Angel Pagan in the lineup, the Giants are dead in the water with a breached hull.  The A's represent a baseball typhoon coming straight toward the Giants full force, ready to batter the weakened Giants vessel for four successive nights. They just swept through the Toronto Blue Jays, leaving them clinging to a second place AL East life raft.

Can the Giants withstand this anticipated summer storm, fighting it off to avoid further sinking?  Can they weather what will be a sure test of their patchwork lineup?  The all-star game coastline is in sight, but for the Giants to make it to shore safely they'll need to batten down the hatches with all men on deck, playing like there's no tomorrow.  Because the Oakland A's now carry MLB's #1 Power Ranking, have seven players voted to the AL All-Star team, and are salivating to lay claim to the crown of Bay Area's best baseball team of 2014. 

The A's are my third favorite team, behind the Giants and Mets.  But I'm not ready to cash in on my Giants just yet.  They're still a bunch of scrappy, never-say-die ball players who can easily turn non-believers into just-you-watch pennant predictors.  Somehow, someway, manager Bruce Bochy will figure out a way to weather the storm and come out of it intact.

The A's & Giants; Just-You-Watch!