Oakland A’s cannot beat Jerome Williams

When a player is traded, he may get pumped up facing his former team.  He also might play the same team in a much shorter span than usual based on his new team’s schedule.  For pitcher Jerome Williams, no matter what team he was playing for this year, he wound up pitching against the Oakland A’s.  Three times to be exact – and he beat them three times no matter what team he was pitching for.

Williams threw seven shutout innings Saturday night against Oakland, giving up only four with three strikeouts.  His current team, the Philadelphia Phillies, found a way to push three runs across the board and gave Williams his sixth win of the year and fourth with the Phillies.

His other two wins came when Williams was pitching for the Houston Astros and then the Texas Rangers.  He had one win a piece with each team.  Those wins also came against Oakland to give him three on the year against one team.  For the season, Williams is just 6-7 with a 4.71 ERA.  For him to beat a team like the A’s comes as a surprise, although his most recent win may not be as shocking as the rest.

Oakland has fallen hard from baseball’s elite and is in danger of missing the playoffs altogether.  Luckily, they won’t have to face Williams the rest of the season.  He held them to two runs in a win with the Rangers on July 25, and picked up a 7-6 win in relief for the Astros on April 26.  If Billy Beane wants his team to find a way to beat the 32-year-old pitcher from Hawaii, he may sign Williams or find a way to acquire him soon enough.  If you can’t beat ’em, employ ’em.