DETROIT -- Before Ken Macha left Comerica Park last night, he made one last stop in Oakland's empty clubhouse to see Frank Thomas .

The skipper shook hands with his 38-year-old slugger, almost always the Athletics' last player to leave, and thanked him for a fine season.

Thomas might have gone hitless in the A's four-game loss to the Detroit Tigers in the A.L. Championship Series, but the Big Hurt was arguably the biggest reason the A's made it this far in a season filled with injuries.

Namely: 39 home runs and 114 RBI in an improbable comeback year after two injury-shortened seasons with the White Sox. Oakland won the A.L. West and then captured its first playoff series since 1990 with a sweep of the Minnesota Twins.

"It means something," Thomas said of Macha's words. "I'm being honest, it helped turn my life around (being here)."

Praise for the coach

Jim Leyland often pays his own visits to the mound, rather than sending out pitching coach Chuck Hernandez. Not that Leyland doesn't value having Hernandez by his side every day -- and serving as the go-between for the skipper and his talented young pitching staff.

"Well, he's the calm and I'm the storm," Leyland said before Game Four yesterday , when the Tigers won, 6-3, to reach their first World Series since 1984. "He doesn't get too excited. He just goes about his work. It's got to be one of the greatest jobs ever done, in my opinion."

Friendly e-mails

A year ago during the A.L. Championship Series, Oakland owner Lew Wolff sported a black Chicago White Sox jacket in Anaheim to support good friend Jerry Reinsdorf and his team.

The White Sox went on to win their first World Series since 1917.

Reinsdorf was absent in Detroit, but supported his longtime buddy via frequent e-mail messages.

"He's e-mailed me about 40 times," Wolff said, standing in the A's dugout before yesterday's Game Four loss to the Tigers at Comerica Park. "He's been very supportive. Jerry's figuring out the Bulls right now. . . . This is the most fun I've ever had, even being behind by three games."

Wolff said Reinsdorf is happy for Thomas and how the 38-year-old slugger has revived his career in Oakland after spending the first 16 seasons of his career on Chicago's South Side with Reinsdorf's White Sox.

Dialing for advice

Macha missed a call from good pal and former Oakland bench coach Terry Francona after the team's 3-0 loss in Game Three on Friday night. It was Francona who in his first season as skipper of the Red Sox in 2004 brought Boston back from a 3-0 deficit against the New York Yankees in the ALCS.

Macha called him that year after Game Three to offer some encouragement.

The Red Sox went on to beat the St. Louis Cardinals, ending an 86-year curse in Beantown with the club's first World Series championship since 1918.

Francona left his message for Macha with Steve Vucinich , Oakland's longtime equipment manager. But the A's lost, 6-3, on Magglio Ordonez's game-winning three-run homer yesterday and are headed home for the winter.

"I talked to Vuce and (he) said, 'It's a basic thing: You've got to win one game today,' " Macha said. "Tomorrow we've got our ace pitching. If we get back to Oakland, I like our chances of doing that."