A’s Moscoso Continues To Impress

The Oakland A’s entered to season with a deep starting rotation, and an equally strong bullpen. That depth, however, was put to the test very early on this season, as the A’s have been hit hard by injuries to their starting pitchers and relievers.

The A’s lost Dallas Braden, an important member of the starting rotation, for the entire season, and the team has also seen players like Brett Anderson, Rich Harden, Tyson Ross, and Brandon McCarthy miss time this season due to injury.

Oakland has been lucky, however, as pitchers like Josh Outman, Graham Godfrey, and Guillermo Moscoso helped an ailing starting rotation.

Injuries tend to open up the door for guys like Moscoso, who has continued to impress since arriving to the rotation last month. He’s been with the team longer than that, making starts in April, but since June 7, Moscoso has pitched extremely well for the A’s.

All in all, Moscoso is making a strong push to remain in the rotation once Tyson Ross returns from injury. In his most recent start, Moscoso held the Mariners to two hits over seven shutout innings, and improved to 3-4 with a 2.16 ERA on the year.

Once Ross does come back from injury, the A’s will have a very interesting choice to make. Does Ross automatically assume his role within the rotation? Or has Moscoso, who has walked just one batter over his last 13.0 innings, pitched well enough to stay in a starting role?

The A’s currently boast the AL’s best ERA (3.09), and are one of the better pitching teams in baseball. Offensively, the A’s are nothing worth talking about, as they rank 28th in runs (304), 27th in batting average (.235), and 29th in on-base percentage (.301).

Nonetheless, it’ll be interesting to see whether or not the A’s decide to continue to hand the ball to Moscoso. He’s certainly played well enough to deserve a chance to stay in the rotation.