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Trevor Cahill is one of the reasons Oakland is still worth watching this late in the year.

By Steve Berthiaume, ESPN

At this point in the baseball season, a piece about the A's and Padres usually comes to bury those teams not to praise them, but since nothing written here should ever be confused with Shakespeare, we'll flip the script.

This weekend the leads in both the AL Central and NL wild card dipped below three games (though the Tigers were able to push the lead back to three with a win against the Twins on Sunday and the Rockies extended their advantage by to four over the Giants by weekend's end).

Every Zack Greinke or Chris Carpenter start means a Cy Young discussion while we make our daily check of Joe Mauer's batting average (for the record, it's .374). Even Nationals fans can at least enjoy Ryan Zimmerman's Web Gem points lead.

With all that going on, I'm guessing you haven't checked an A's box score lately or looked for a Padres highlight, but let's give credit where it's due: with almost nothing to play for and few people showing interest, the A's and Padres have managed to extract some meaningful baseball from otherwise meaningless games. It's these kinds of efforts that put integrity into the full 162-game schedule, especially when you consider it comes from two teams which began the 2009 season among the five lowest payrolls in the majors.

Let's start with the A's. Last week they faced two teams fighting for postseason survival and won both series, taking two of three at Minnesota before going to Texas where they swept the Rangers, outscoring Texas 19-1. (That series turned out to be a continuation of last week's disastrous offensive slide for the Rangers, during which Texas scored exactly one run in five games and was shut out four times.)

Trevor Cahill completed Oakland's sweep of the Rangers this past Wednesday with seven innings of one-hit ball, retiring 16 straight batters at one point. As he heads into this week, Cahill is 3-0 over his previous six starts with a 2.57 ERA. Cahill is getting big outs: In his past four starts, opponents are 1-for-19 with runners in scoring position against him.

Two nights later, Brett Anderson used his slider and curveball to strike out a career-high 10 batters in six innings against the Indians. Anderson, who like Cahill is just 21 years old, has 139 strikeouts this season and is now only three more strikeouts from breaking Rick Langford's A's rookie record set in 1977. Take a moment to go back and look at the past dozen or so games the A's have played; they're rolling. As Tim Kurkjian said this weekend about Oakland, "they've developed some young players despite all the losing. It's not a wasted year for the A's."

The Padres' season looked like a lost cause almost immediately. It got so bad even Jake Peavy finally agreed to grab a parachute and jump out over Chicago. However, the Padres have made their September mean something, and they deserve all the credit in the world for it. Starting on Aug. 25, San Diego won two of three in Atlanta and then two of three in Florida (both road series wins against NL wild-card contenders), then closed the month by sweeping Washington.

Following that, the Padres played three more series against teams fighting for NL postseason spots; the Dodgers, Giants and Rockies. San Diego won two of three in Los Angeles, won two of three in San Francisco and then went back home to Petco Park and stopped the Rockies' eight-game winning streak cold by taking two of three from Colorado. Who would have thought for even a moment back in mid-August that the team that would inflict the most damage on NL postseason contenders over the next four weeks would be the San Diego Padres?

Since July 28, the Fighting Sons of Nate Colbert have played at a pace that's about 10 games over .500. Last season, San Diego finished a miserable 63-99. This year, if the Padres can just play .500 ball from here on in, they can better their 2008 win total by about 10 games.

The A's and Padres just show you what is so great about baseball. Even with two seemingly lost seasons there are always reasons to watch, always players in whom to take an interest or get excited about and one lesson that applies to pretty much everything in life: If you play the full 162 like they all mean something, good things will happen.

Past Baseball Tonight Clubhouses: Sept. 17 | Sept. 16 | Sept. 15 | Sept. 14 | Sept. 13

WEB GEMS SCOREBOARD

This season, "Baseball Tonight" will be tracking Web Gems. We'll publish a leaderboard on the Baseball Tonight Clubhouse page each Monday. In addition to listing the leaders in appearances (both players and teams) on "Baseball Tonight," we'll offer up the leaders in Web Gem points.

Web Gem points will be calculated by awarding five points for the night's top defensive play, four points for second, three for third, two for fourth and one for fifth. Scoring will be based on the Web Gems from the last "Baseball Tonight" show to air on a given night.

Web Gem points leaderboard
Ryan Zimmerman	54
Mark Reynolds	43
Jack Wilson	37
Brandon Inge	36
Carlos Gomez	27
Jacoby Ellsbury	27
David Wright	26
Three tied	25

Web Gem appearances leaderboard (players)
Ryan Zimmerman	Washington	Third base	17
Brandon Inge	Detroit	Third base	12
Mark Reynolds	Arizona	Third base	11
David Wright	New York Mets	Third base	10
Jack Wilson	Pittsburgh-Seattle	Shortstop	9
Chone Figgins	L.A. Angels	Third base	8

Web Gem appearances leaderboard (teams)
Pittsburgh	40
Washington	37
Cincinnati	33
Philadelphia	29
Minnesota	29
L.A. Angels	29
Texas	29

TOUCH 'EM ALL

Who went deep? Keep track of all the home runs hit each day on "Baseball Tonight" and on the Baseball Tonight Clubhouse page.

For more, check out the Home Run Tracker page.

Home Run Tracker
NAME	HR	OPP	SITUATION
Prince Fielder, MIL	40	Paulino	Bot 1: 3-2, 1 Out. None on.
Jason Bay, BOS	35	Waters	Top 4: 3-1, 1 Out. None on.
Andre Ethier, LAD	31	Lincecum	Bot 3: 3-2, 2 Outs. 1 on.
Luke Scott, BAL	24	Matsuzaka	Bot 4: 3-1, 1 Out. 1 on.
Juan Rivera, LAA	23	Holland	Top 4: 2-2, 1 Out. None on.
Joey Votto, CIN	22	Wood	Bot 7: 2-0, 0 Outs. 1 on.
Ken Griffey Jr., SEA	16	Chamberlain	Bot 2: 1-2, 2 Outs. 2 on.
Carl Crawford, TB	14	Halladay	Bot 1: 0-0, 0 Outs. 1 on.
Ryan Raburn, DET	13	Liriano	Top 8: 1-0, 0 Outs. None on.
Jason Giambi, COL	13	Haren	Top 8: 2-2, 2 Outs. 1 on.

The complete list of Sunday's homers