[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]

Man-Crush Watch

Jack Cust: 4 hits in 20 at-bats, 10 walks with 2 home runs and 6 RBI over the past week.

Cust also got himself into the “Go Figure” section of the current Sport Illustrated. SI pointed out the fact that Cust previously had 5 career home runs before his trade to the A’s. He currently has 8 home runs in 46 at bats with Oakland.

Pretty Ricky

Are the A’s desperate enough to consider Ricky Henderson for their outfield? Crazy as it sounds, Henderson is best known as an Athletic, and may be singed by the A’s this year. Its rumored that they might sign the old man to allow him to formally retire from playing in an Oakland uniform. Knowing Beane though, I can see him as a GM who would figure that there cannot be any harm in signing Ricky to the league minimum and if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. And as crazy as someone might find it, I could actually see them give him a shot since I anticipate the A’s contemplate doing a lot of selling this summer, and on their for sale list will include at least two to three outfielders.

On The D(own) L(ow)

Huston Street hit the DL this week with a right ulnar nerve irritation, which immediately bit them in the ass in the form of Justin Duchscherer blowing a 0-0 tie in the ninth to the Royals. Two nights later it was Kiko Calero’s turn and with those two wins the A’s dropped three of four to Kansas City. Huston, please get healthy.

Fun fact from Yahoo! Sports:

The Athletics currently have 10 players on the disabled list and those players have missed a combined 219 games. It marks the first time that Oakland has had at least eight players sidelined at one time since August 27-29, 1997 when they had 11 players on the DL

Others guys on the team aren’t completely down for the count, but their stats are much lower than I’d like. Nick Swisher hit .231/.394/.269 over last week and Jack Cust was .200/.467/.550.

Important Week Ahead

The same week the A’s tanked three games of four to the freakin Royals, the division leading Angels went 8-2. I know its early, but with the A’s pitching injuries mounting its tough to lose to bad teams. The Angels draw the Tigers and Yankees though this week. The A’s also got some tough teams ahead: the White Sox and Orioles. As long as they can keep pace with the Angels, they will have the ability to push LA once Oakland gets healthy.