Jemile Weeks Collects First Two Major League Hits For Oakland Athletics

You better not have blinked while looking for a silver lining in the A's ninth straight loss of the season Wednesday night in Oakland's 3-2 loss in Baltimore. Otherwise, as the saying goes, you might have missed Jemile Weeks.

The 5-feet-9, 160 pound (soaking wet and with rocks in his pockets) Weeks was all over the field in his second career major league game. He had a single, a double and, if the official scorekeeper was in a more magnanimous mood, he would have had a triple, too.

The second baseman also scored two runs - the A's only two runs and turned a nifty double-play in which he deftly backhanded Adam Jones' grounder up the middle, touched the bag to force out Nick Markakis and gained his balance in time to throw across his body to get Jones at first.

This is what the A's, no doubt, envisioned, when they drafted him with the No. 12 overall pick in 2008 out of Miami. Not what he showed Tuesday in his first big league at-bat.

Called up from Triple-A Sacramento, where he was absolutely raking the ball at a .321 clip with a .417 on-base percentage, to help out with Mark Ellis going on the disabled list with a strained right hamstring, Weeks was put in the lead-off spot.

In his first-ever at-bat, Weeks watched not one. Not two. Not three or even four pitches go by without so much as lifting his bat off his shoulders. He looked at five - five! - pitches and, yes, struck out looking. Looking!

Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was part of his master plan. Either way, the A's wanted him for his aggressiveness, in every aspect of the game.
Dropped to No. 9 in the lineup Wednesday, he showed it in his first at-bat, jumping on a 90-mph fastball from Zach Britton and driving the 2-and-0 offering into the left-fielder corner for a one-out double in the third inning, Weeks' first career hit.

In the sixth, he led off the inning with a single to left, moved to third on Coco Crisp's single to center and scored on Daric Barton's 4-6-3 double-play, Week's first career run scored.

And in the eighth, his drive to left was lost in the Camden Yards lights by Nolan Reimold for what was ruled a three-base error. And despite jamming his neck in Orioles third baseman Mark Reynolds', ahem, nether region on his late-breaking head-first slide, Weeks stayed in the game. He scored one batter later on Crisp's sac fly to center, Week's second career run scored.

Yes, Weeks is still looking for his first career victory. He already his his first career silver lining.


(csnbayarea.com)