[The Elephant Walk is my weekly wrap-up of Oakland Athletics baseball. Results, performances, transactions or other thoughts I might have about the A’s]

Jack Cust, Where Have You Been All My Life?

Thank goodness for Jack Cust and Dan Johnson. The pair have accumulated 15 home runs and 21 RBI over the past week… just think about what more they could have done with some baserunners. Who knows how long they can keep this up, but both have the kind of contact rates to be legit .300 hitters. Cust is obviously a shocker, very few fans knew of this guy’s existence before last week; Johnson however was a guy I thought just had an off year last year. The A’s obviously did not completely give up on him, and rightly so. Although to be honest, they did prepare for the worst by signing Todd Walker and trading for Jason Stokes. Now Walker’s not on the team; he will have to be traded or released in the next 9 days, and from the sound of it he would be okay with retiring back to his Louisiana home.

Back to Cust, my blossoming man-crush was only fueled by his first career walk off homerun today against Cleveland. Cust’s 6th homer in 26 at bats with Oakland put the cap on the week which will see them a half game out of the lead in the AL West with a four game series against Kansas City coming up next week… that needs to work out to three wins and of course I’d love to see the A’s sweep the carpet out from under their Bay Area rival Giants.

Getting Healthy

I suppose the only good thing about a guy hitting the DL is that from that point onward, each week the news typically gets better. Rich Harden could be throwing from a mound in a week, Esteban Loaiza is on one of four minor league starts that will comprise his rehab, and Milton Bradley rejoined the team this week and went yard today to tie the game in the 9th and set the stage for Cust’s game winner. Bradley’s return opens up the table for the question of who will get demoted when the rest of the A’s get healthy… and if they will opt to trade Mike Piazza if Johnson and/or Cust can keep hitting. I never liked the Piazza signing in the first place, so I’m all for trading away some of their contact year players like Stewart and Piazza. If Billy Beane can dig up guys like Cust with very little bait, I wonder what he can do with a guy like Piazza.

On The Farm

Again, thank goodness for Cust and Johnson, because the backup plans are not doing very well right now. Currently, Daric Barton is hitting a robust .229 and Jason Stokes is hitting .186. That’s not going to get either of them a callup. JD Closser, the newly acquired catcher is hitting though, and in his first six games is hitting .300 with five walks; Closser is currently tied for the team lead in walks per at bat with 1 walk for every 4 at bats. That is exactly how to get yourself a callup in Billy Beane’s system. If Closser keeps this up, add Jason Kendall to the list of guys I wouldn’t mind see traded before the deadline as the A’s would then have both Closser and Kurt Suzuki deserving of a shot at the catcher gig.