June 22

Chuck Tanner used to say the first third, or two months, of a season is spent developing a team's character and finding out what it has. The next two months are spent trying to develop or get what it needs. The final two months are the run.

There is no better example than the team Tanner once managed and was traded from for Manny Sanguillen -- the Oakland Athletics. Four years in a row the A's have plodded along for two months, then taken off. In both 2000 and 2001, the A's finished with the second best record in the American League; last year, in fact, they were 38-41 on July 1, and went on to win 102 games.

	Mark Mulder is 5-0 with a 2.12 ERA over his last five starts.

"Some people view .500 at this time of year as a reason to dissemble," says Oakland GM Bily Beane. "We've viewed it as a reason to re-assemble. So we've tried to build on what we have and we have won 87, 91 and 102 games (in each of the last three years)."

Three years in succession Beane creatively rearranged and strengthened his roster the last week of July without adding too much payroll. In 1999, he traded Kenny Rogers and Billy Taylor for Jason Isringhausen and Terrence Long while acquiring veterans Kevin Appier and Randy Velarde, then the last two years has traded for Jim Mecir and Jermaine Dye.

"Some of what you do is based on your schedule and whether or not you can make up ground," says Beane. "You look at teams that are going to be moving players and those that may be acquiring players, and if the schedule breaks so you have a lot of movers in August, it's a good time to make an acquisition or two and give the team a boost."

Now, the A's are back, having gone 16-3 during the month of June heading into Saturday's game in Cincinnati. This season's climb to the playoffs will be far more difficult than the last two years, not just because they do not have Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon, but because they have to climb past Seattle and Anaheim and the wild card may well come out of the AL East, whose second-place team (the Yankees) the A's trailed by four games through Friday.

But it leaves Beane, who traded Jeremy Giambi to Philadelphia in late May in order to free up cash to sign his draft picks, with an intriguing dilemma. He's back trying to make deals to make another run at the postseason, right now for another reliever to eat up some innings, then later, if he can make it work, find this year's Dye. There has been speculation about Brian Giles from a Pirates team which would like to move payroll. But Giles' salary (and no-trade clause to Oakland) and the Athletics' ability to give the Pirates the rebuilding tools they need may be impossible. Right now, Beane is talking to several teams about adding one or two relievers to lengthen the A's staff. If they are right in it at the end of July and there is some financial flexibility, he will try to add a major player, but cautions "we won't break up any of the core of what this team will be the next three or four years, because we're going to be very good over that time.

"We'll be good for a very simple reason -- the starting pitching," says Beane. "Jason Giambi was always great here, deserving of being the MVP two straight years. Johnny Damon was a great player for us, a great player. When we weren't winning we heard things like 'they don't win because they don't have speed at the top of the order.' Pu-leaze. It's always been about our pitching. Early in the season, we were playing without Giambi and Damon, Jermaine Dye and David Justice were out and Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder weren't themselves. That's a lot to play without when we played the Yankees and Red Sox 12 times. Once we got Mulder and Hudson going with Zito, we started winning."

In this 16-3 run, Barry Zito, Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson are 9-0. Zito, who is 22-4 since last July 1, has won eight in a row and appears headed to where his two amigos have been, runner-up in the Cy Young. Mulder is 5-0, 2.16, Hudson 2-0, 1.83 in each of their last five starts. Zito is 24 years old and 33-14 in his career; Mulder is also 24 and 37-22; Hudson is 26 and 54-23. Zito was drafted in '99, Mulder and Hudson in '98. Already they are a combined 124-59.

"Tim is the heart and soul of this pitching staff, and for him to get back to normal is a very important factor for the entire team," says A's pitching coach Rick Peterson. "He is so competitive, so tough. Some things got out of whack for him the first couple of months, but he's right back where he was before."

Mulder hurt his forearm in April and missed a month, but he is back where he was when he won 21 games in 2001. Now Zito, whose dedication is sometimes camouflaged by his perceived quirkiness, has emerged as one of the game's premier pitchers.

"Barry has always been driven, but where early last season he still had some doubts about himself, he's right on track to be what he wants to be -- one of the premier pitchers in the game," says Peterson.

Zito not only takes his pitching very seriously, he has come to be serious about his diet, and teammates kid him about his walking onto planes with his blue cooler of special food in one hand and his guitar in the other.

Rookie right-hander Aaron Harang, acquired in Dec. 2000 from Texas for Randy Velarde, has been a strong fifth starter. Billy Koch has recently blown people away as the closer, saving games this week on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and after Friday night's game (when he was throwing his normal 95-99 mph stuff) he walked into A's manager Art Howe's office and volunteered to work again on Saturday. "He's going to throw 100 innings as a closer," says Beane, "which is like having two pitchers."

Other than available cash and the likely unavailability of anyone close to being another Dye, a problem facing Beane in trying to make a significant trade is the fact that he has used up a lot of young players to build a team that has contended for four straight years on one of the lowest payrolls in the game. The organization now is wondering about fast-tracking 20-year old right-hander Rich Harden, who one year into pro ball has shot from Visalia in the Class A California League to Midland in Double-A, with these numbers: 85 IP, 60 H, 29 BB, 109 K, 2.72 ERA (in two hitters' leagues).

"He has electric stuff," says one scout of Harden. "One opposing manager says he's the best he's seen all year, and neither one of us have seen another pitcher this season that gets as many swings and misses." Expect Harden to be in the 2003 rotation with The Big Three along with Harang.

After early struggles, the Oakland position players -- from Miguel Tejada and Eric Chavez to Scott Hatteberg, David Justice and Dye -- have started to come on strong, as well. But they are back in the high life again for three principle reasons: Zito, Hudson and Mulder.