MLB oakland Athletics

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That the Doctor is in again. Toronto ace Roy Halladay (aka "Doc") returned from a two-week stint on the disabled list and pitched credibly, but lost 4-1 to Tampa Bay. Halladay, who had been out with a sore groin, gave up two runs in six innings.

"It wasn't too bad," Halladay said. "Location there in the second and third inning was kind of hit and miss a little bit. For the most part I felt pretty good with everything."

Halladay lost for the first time since April 21. He is 10-2 with a 2.56 ERA. If you're looking ahead, Halladay -- and Giants ace Tim Lincecum, who pitched a gem on Monday -- would both be on perfect rest to start the All-Star Game.

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Every Sunday, MLB FanHouse empties out its notebook in Baseball Brunch.

"This concludes our test of the emergency attendance enhancement system. We now return to the regularly scheduled season."

Yes, the 13th season of interleague play wraps up Sunday, except for a Cubs-White Sox makeup game. We have survived six San Diego-Seattle games (that's more zeroes than an A-Rod paycheck).

We didn't learn much we didn't already know: the system has inherent flaws and the American League rules.

For the sixth straight year, the AL has had** the better record in interleague play – 129-108 going into today.

Take out Cleveland and Oakland, and the AL is 119-84.

"It probably is" as big a gap between leagues as in past years, one AL team official said, "until you get to the World Series. Then it doesn't matter."

With the Cubs imploding and the Brewers still in desperate need of pitching, the road to a playoff return for the St. Louis Cardinals is looking more and more wide open. The Cardinals see this opportunity themselves.

As such, they have begun keeping tabs on A's slugger Matt Holliday should Oakland decide to move him before the trade deadline, a major league source told FanHouse's Jeff Fletcher. St. Louis is cautious because of the size of Holliday's paycheck -- $13.5 million this year -- and his sagging performance in his first season away from Coors Field, but the team is interested in getting perennial MVP candidate Albert Pujols some help in the middle of the order.

Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also reported that the team is stepping up its efforts to bring Holliday back to the National League for a stretch run.

Saturday Spotlight is a weekly look inside the backgrounds and personalities of major leaguers.

Don't tell me you haven't heard of A's left-hander Craig Breslow? He is, of course, The Smartest Man in Baseball, as determined by the Wall Street Journal. Breslow went to Yale and graduated with a degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. So, yeah, he's not your typical major leaguer. In this interview he talks about how such a brainiac got to be a ballplayer, and what he plans to do with all that gray matter when he's done pitching.

Click after the jump to listen to the interview...

With the White Sox and Cubs set to begin their second series against each other this season at U.S. Cellular Field, former White Sox first baseman Frank Thomas is back in Chicago, but instead of playing he's now a member of the local media. The two-time AL MVP is 41 years old now but he's still open to the idea of coming back and playing if anybody is interested in his services.

The problem is that there just aren't that many teams in the market for a 41-year old designated hitter right now, and it's highly unlikely there will be any suitors for the Big Hurt in the near future. So it's not exactly a shocker that while giving a radio interview in Chicago on Thursday Thomas said he's very close to just hanging up his cleats.

Although the big movie studios have all balked at putting the best-selling baseball book 'Moneyball' on the silver screen, one of the versions of a screenplay for the movie has surfaced on Hollywood Elsewhere. (EDIT: The link to the actual script seems to have been removed.)

I just finished reading through the whole thing and it actually does stick relatively close to the story of the book. Sure, there are some changes -- like making Billy Beane a bachelor and having him hook up with a waitress (p. 20) -- but for the most part it's a story of how he built the 2002 A's into a winner on a shoestring budget after losing three big-time free agents, Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon and Jason Isringhausen.

Jose Canseco has fired back in a war of words between him and his teammates from 1989 A's.

Before the A's hosted a reunion of the World Series championship team on Tuesday, Giants hitting coach Carney Lansford said he was glad that Canseco wasn't coming because Canseco had not endeared himself to teammates by writing a tell-all book.

On Wednesday, Canseco responded on SportsNetCentral, a sports news show produced by Comcast Sports Net Bay Area.

OAKLAND -- The Oakland Athletics invited the members of their 1989 World Series championship team back for a reunion on Tuesday, and a couple players were conspicuous in their absence: Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco.

Canseco, who was otherwise occupied (see right), was hardly missed.

A day after Carney Lansford said he was still upset at Canseco for writing a tell-all book, Dave Stewart said the A's distaste for Canseco started long before that.

"This book had nothing to do with it, he was a bad teammate," Stewart said.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

The NL Wild-Card Race
Team	W	L	GB
Brewers	37	32	-
Giants	37	32	-
Rockies	37	33	1/2
Cubs	34	32	1 1/2
Mets	35	33	1 1/2

You Oughta Know ...
There are now five teams within 1 1/2 games of the NL wild-card lead.

San Francisco on Monday lost to Oakland for the first time in the past six Bay Bridge Series meetings to fall into a tie with idle Milwaukee.

Meanwhile, the Mets beat the Cardinals and the Rockies took advantage of six (!) wild pitches to beat the Angels, so both picked up a full game.

So Colorado is a 1/2 game back, and the Mets and Cubs are 1 1/2 out.

It bodes for a fun race. A year ago today, only three teams were within five games of the NL wild-card lead and Tampa Bay had a three-game lead on the AL side.

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Best 1-2 punch in baseball? Maybe Josh Beckett and Jon Lester.

Best young 1-2 combo? Probably Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain.

Best young 1-2 starters you may not have heard of? Josh Johnson and Chris Volstad.