The Oakland Athletics are in 1st place, 13 games into the season. On Monday the A’s defeated the Chicago White Sox by a score of 2-1 to improve to 8-5, 1st place in the AL West standings. The win for the A’s went to rookie Greg Smith, who made his 2nd career start. He held the Sox to just 1 earned run with 6 hits over 7 innings pitched. After Santiago Casilla and Alan Embree combined to pitch a scoreless 8th inning, Huston Street notched his 4th save of the season. The loss put the White Sox at a 7-5 record, 2nd place in the AL Central division.

“It wouldn’t appear that was his second time out in a major league uniform on the mound like that,” Oakland manager Bob Geren said of the rookie Smith. “He does a nice job controlling the running game. We saw that a lot in Arizona. That’s part of his total game. He’s difficult to run on and he throws strikes. That’s a good combination.”

The Oakland A’s offense managed to strand 21 base-runners in the process, but still was just effective enough to get a win for Smith. There were 10 total hits for Oakland, 4 coming off the bat of catcher Kurt Suzuki. He singled in the 1st inning to score Mike Sweeney from 3rd base. Two innings later, off-season signing Emil Brown singled to plate Mike Sweeney for the 2nd, and last run of the game for the A’s. The lone White Sox run came from an RBI ground-out off the bat of Jim Thome.

“Smith went out and pitched a great game. Somebody we’d never seen before,” former Oakland A Nick Swisher said. “He had great command of his changeup. We had a couple of good chances to tie the game or maybe move ahead. It just didn’t happen. We’ve been playing good baseball. … Our sticks didn’t come around.”

Is it possible that this Oakland team can win this year? Not at all likely, but it could be possible. Jack Cust and Mike Sweeney are about as good from the DH position as a manager could ask for. If Bobby Crosby could stay healthy, he and Mark Ellis would make for a very good middle infield. The key to their outfield is on the young players; Carlos Gonzalez, Ryan Sweeney and Travis Buck could all be starting everyday by June. Daric Barton is starting to look more comfortable against major league pitching. Chad Gaudin just returned from the DL, and Greg Smith and Dana Eveland are turning in stellar rookie campaigns already. There are so many, “what ifs” with this A’s team but if primarily healthy in the 2008 season, Oakland could surprise all of major league baseball.