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The Oakland Telegraph
1 July 2028
Dickson and Vargas lead Oakland's postseason push
By Per Fect-Pitching, shutouts correspondent
After his 6-hit shutout exhibition in Oakland's 6-0 victory over the Texas Rangers last night, A's starter Karl Dickson was quick to credit new arrival Lucio Vargas with helping him strengthen his game. Dickson has responded well to being pushed down from the top of the rotation spot by Vargas, and quashed rumours of any tension between the pair.
Dickson and Vargas have rapidly formed a two-headed monster atop the A's rotation and have terrorised opposition batters in their starts over the last three weeks. Vargas himself has made a predictably fast start to life in the A's organisation, posting a 2-0 record and 1.94 ERA in four starts for the club. "Lucio has helped me a lot with my game already since my arrival, and he and I get on absolutely great", he said, slickly displaying his intensive media training. "In him and Jose Fernandez, I've now played with arguably both the two greatest pitchers of the Dynastic Era of Baseball; how can that not help my own game?"
The pair's performances have helped Oakland push on to a 42-32 record, good enough for the second American League wildcard spot. They remain second in the American League West, and, after briefly falling to 11 games back of the Astros a month ago, now sit within striking distance at 6 games behind.
Meanwhile, fellow starter Jon Dixon has so far confounded all the preseason doom-mongers about his signing by putting together a very tidy first half of the season. In 14 starts, he has gone 6-2 with a 3.29 ERA mark that ranks only narrowly outside the top ten in the AL. GM Paulie Beane said, "I always had total confidence Jon would produce the goods for us. Honest, I did. Really. Honest." The man he doth protest too much, methinks.
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