Mar 19, 2013; Glendale, AZ, USA; Oakland Athletics pitcher Dan Straily pitches against the Los Angeles Dodgers during the first inning at Camelback Ranch. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Dan Straily took the mound for the A’s and had his best outing of the spring against the defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants.  The plan for today’s game was for Straily to work the first 5 innings, and for Bartolo Colon to handle the last 4.  Over Straily’s 5 innings of work he surrendered just 6 hits and no runs while striking out 5, he walked nobody as well.  This had to be encouraging for Bob Melvin and the A’s staff as Straily had been roughed up a bit throughout the spring.  He finished with a 5.82 ERA.  Colon’s problem this spring has been the amount of hits he’s given up, he’d allowed 28 hits in 16 innings going into today’s game.  He allowed just 3 hits in his 4 innings of work today, but he allowed a 3-run home run to backup catcher Guillermo Quiroz, only 2 of those runs were earned, Colon struck out 6 as he picked up the 4 inning save.

The A’s offense once again came primarily off the bat of Yoenis Cespedes, who yanked a Ryan Vogelsong pitch over the wall in left field to give the A’s a 4-0 lead.  The A’s only tallied 6 hits today, 2 of which came off the bat of Coco Crisp, John Jaso, Josh Reddick, and Josh Donaldson.  Eric Sogard finished the spring with a .444 average, down from the impressive .500+ average he was boasting over the last week of the Cactus League.  Sogard’s play did earn him a spot on the 25-man roster, and quite possibly a spot in the Opening Day lineup on Monday.

The A’s finished the exhibition season 17-13-3, not too shabby.

After the game the final roster was announced as Hiro Nakajima was placed on the 15 day DL with the hamstring injury he suffered on Tuesday.  Nate Freiman‘s audition with the Athletics will indeed continue as he grabs an infield spot.  Evan Scribner grabbed the final bullpen spot in favor of Mike Ekstrom, Pedro Figueroa, and Hideki Okajima.

Perhaps the highlight of the day came when freshly designated for assignment pitcher Travis Blackley came to the Coliseum and hung out with the right field crew for a bit to soak in the game and show some love back to the fans.  I’ll hold out some hope that some way some how he can stay with the organization and find his way back into an Athletics uniform, he belongs.

The team takes a full off day tomorrow before starting a 4 game series Monday night against the Seattle Mariners and Felix Hernandez (again…).  The moment we’ve all waited for since October is almost here.

It’s always a test of the will for the players to make it through the monotany of Spring Training, you can only play so many games that mean absolutely zilch before you get a little stir crazy.  So tack on another week to make room for the WBC and you can imagine how much fun it would be by week 4, knowing you still had another week of games when normally you’d be packing up to head to your home ballpark.  But alas, the time for exhibitions is almost over.

So as the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants prepare to play the 3 game Bay Bridge Series (In San Francisco Thursday and Friday, Oakland on Saturday), it’s time for us to make sense of what we all saw of the Athletics in Arizona, and also to figure out what, if anything, means anything from all of that.  So if I haven’t lost you already, let’s take a quick look at some of those who excelled this spring.

I’ll forego discussing Eric Sogard for the sake of not being overly redundant, the guy hit .500 for the spring and that’s probably earned him a roster spot.

March 21, 2013; Goodyear, AZ, USA; Oakland Athletics catcher Derek Norris (36) celebrates with teammates after hitting a two run homerun in the second inning during a spring training game against the Cincinnati Reds at Goodyear Ballpark. Mandatory Credit: Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Derek Norris was one player who I had very little faith in down the stretch last season, I expected him to make outs, often unproductive ones whenever he stepped up to bat, and he usually came through.  This year he came into camp trimmed down, and with a retooled swing, designed to eradicate the Derek Norris that drove me mad in September 2012.  So far, it seems like it may have worked.  He posted an impressive .378/.489/.838 line with 5 home runs and a pair of doubles.  He won’t be expected to carry the load behind the plate like he did last year, but if he can turn himself into a productive hitter instead of an automatic out then he’ll certainly do his part in the platoon with John Jaso.

The biggest and most pleasant surprise of the spring not named Eric Sogard would have to be Shane Peterson.  The last remaining piece from the Matt Holliday trade (I still despise him by the way) has emerged as a viable call up option for the Athletics in 2013 with a solid 2012 season in Double and Triple A, and a very nice Cactus League with the big club.  Peterson hit .408/.463/.653 mostly as a sub for one of the Athletics starting outfielders.  Every time you looked it seemed he was getting on base and making things happen.  He’ll head to Sacramento to start the season, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him called up ahead of Michael Taylor if (when) one of the Josh Reddick, Yoenis Cespedes, Coco Crisp, Chris Young foursome winds up on the DL.

I wrote not long ago about Josh Donaldson and the rather unproductive spring he’d been having, and how he was being given the benefit of the doubt despite a very small sample size in the major leagues, and Hiro Nakajima was practically being thrown out the door for posting the same numbers.  Well, Donaldson must have heard me because he tore up Cactus League pitching over the final 10 days or so and wound up with a very respectable, dare I say encouraging .314/.390/.549 slash line.  I have very muted expectations for him during this coming season, perhaps I’m bracing for a little regression, but if he can make adjustments during the regular season like he seemingly did in Arizona, there may be some legitimacy to his bat after all.

Then there are guys who are expected to be cornerstone players in the Athletics 2013 lineup.  Yoenis Cespedes started off very cold, but began to heat up while launching a tape measure home run against Tim Lincecum in the process.  La Potencia will be muy bien.  I’ve been critical of Josh Reddick over the last year for his apparent lack of clutch hitting, and while there’s no real test for that in Spring Training, Reddick did hit fairly well, hopefully he’s fine tuned his approach for the upcoming campaign.  Then there’s my main man Brandon Moss, even though I did write him a Valentine, I can observe him objectively.  He didn’t hit for much in the way of power this spring, but he showed a comfort level in the box against lefties and righties that is encouraging for his continued success.

It wasn’t all good though in the Valley of the Sun.  The pitching staff got knocked around a bit.  The lowest ERA posted by any of the projected members of the starting rotation was 4.82 by Tommy Milone.  I’m not so much worried about them though, pitchers often tinker with things during their starts, or only throw certain pitches to work on them, or do all kinds of weird things.  As long as they feel good then nothing else matters, need I remind you of Bob Welch in 1990?  Travis Blackley may have scared some members of the Athletics organization with his ERA hovering around eleventy-billion, but perhaps he was suffering a tobacco-less withdrawl that affected his performance more than he thought it would, much like we saw with Josh Hamilton last season.  He’s sacrificing his health for the good of the team apparently now, so let’s hope it’ll turn things around for him.

Like I didn’t rehash the Eric Sogard discussion, I won’t do that with Hiro Nakajima and his well documented struggles this spring.  I still think he’ll be just fine, and just needs some more time to achieve a level of comfort stateside.

All in all, with a 15-12 record, the A’s are just about right where they should be as they return to the East Bay late Wednesday.  They didn’t embarrass themselves, and they didn’t tear down the house either.  A record right around the .500 mark is perfectly fine, and not going to excite anyone in either direction.  The meaningless stats are about to disappear, and return to their 11 month hibernation as the regular season commences in just a few days.  The wait for A’s baseball is almost over.

Throughout the Cactus League schedule, the presumed battle between Scott Sizemore and Jemile Weeks for the starting second base job was supposed to dominate much of the conversation.  That didn’t happen because Jemile Weeks hurt his shoulder, and was relatively unproductive after his return and has already been optioned.  Sizemore has been underwhelming as he works his way back into everyday baseball form after missing 2012.  Jed Lowrie‘s highly productive spring has all but ensured him a spot in the lineup everyday, although perhaps not at the same position everyday.

Mar 19, 2013; Glendale, AZ, USA; Oakland Athletics shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima (3) jogs off the field after the third inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Camelback Ranch. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Then there’s Hiroyuki Nakajima, everyone’s “Super Hiro” as the ItsOpeningDay Designs shirt cleverly displays.  He was the one member of the middle infield annointed as a starter at the beginning of camp by Manager Bob Melvin.  Hiro didn’t exactly impress though, posting a paltry .167/.286/.190 line in 46 plate appearances.  Nakajima though is still adjusting to life in the United States, not to mention an entirely new league to learn.  Many have become impatient, wanting to see the same guy who we all saw driving the ball and showboating after hitting no doubt home runs.  He hasn’t arrived yet, and chances are we’ll have to wait a little while longer to see that guy because Nakajima pulled up lame advancing to second base on a sac bunt this afternoon.  Hiro’s strained hamstring could give the A’s an excuse to not place him on the 25-man roster if they can justify a DL stint and a “rehab” assignment for him in Triple A.  This could serve a dual purpose for the A’s in getting Nakajima a little more time to get comfortable, and also buy some time to evaluate another middle infielder.

That middle infielder goes by the name of Eric Sogard, and he’s torn up the Cactus League.  The injury to Nakajima, and the announcement today that Adam Rosales will start the season on the DL with an intercostal strain seems to all but ensure Sogard’s presence on the 25-man roster come Monday night.  Whether he’ll be in the starting lineup is an entirely different story.

You can probably write Jed Lowrie’s name on your scorebook right now at the shortstop position for Monday’s opener.  It remains to be seen whether Eric Sogard or Scott Sizemore is his double play partner.  We know though that the Athletics tried to improve their depth in order to deal with situations like this with multiple injuries, and that depth will be immediately put to the test.  So we’ll see pretty quickly whether or not Billy Beane has done enough to make this team a contender once again.