It’s Not Over Until It’s …Ah, Forget It

May 10, 2014; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Athletics starting pitcher Sonny Gray (54) reacts after giving up two runs to the Washington Nationals during the third inning at O.co Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Swoosh!

That swirling sound you hear is the Oakland Athletics’ season going down the drain – or in the pessimistic eyes of myself, it’s their 2014 post season chances circling in the toilet bowl of fate as they find new ways to flush this season away.

In a season that had everything going right, the A’s seem to be finding creative ways to lose.

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On Sunday, with a one-run lead, their appointed closer for the game, 2012 All-Star Ryan Cook, proceeded to walk three batters in his first four faced, followed by Fernando Abad who gave up a sacrifice fly to tie it and walk two more to give up the lead. All-in-all, the winning Houston Astros scored two runs without the benefit of a hit as the A’s followed with a 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth.

Monday started just as rough as the Chicago White Sox were bequeathed with a two-run lead in the first inning by starter Sonny Gray, again all without the benefit of a hit, but the A’s were at least able to recover and get the lead. Then in the ninth, again with only a one-run lead, and mind you after wasting a lead-off triple that they weren’t able to score for any insurance, Tyler Flowers homered with two outs and two strikes from lefty Eric O’Flaherty, taking a win away from Gray and sending the game into extra innings with the game tied at 4-4.

After the White Sox bullpen, third-worst in the majors, held the A’s hitless for three innings, Flowers again delivered another fence clearing blast off Jesse Chavez for the A’s fifth one-run loss in their last six games.

The A’s now find themselves 8 games back of the Angels with no real chance of a third consecutive AL West title and the wildcard is in serious jeopardy. What makes matters worse is the Angels have posted their “Magic Number” of winning the division at 12 games. These September A’s no longer resemble performance-wise the Oakland A’s of April-July.

In a season that started 51-30 for the first half, the A’s went 12-17 in August and are 2-5 in September with only 19 games to play.

Josh “BringerOfRain” Donaldson, who practically carried the A’s in August for their handful of victories, went 0-5 with 4 Ks on Monday and finds himself in the same severe drought as the rest of California, hitting only .103 so far this month. His last rainmaker/HR was on Aug 28 which tied the game vs. the Angels, but the A’s went on to lose that one by one-run (again).

All-Star Brandon Moss, who wielded an immensely potent bat since joining the Athletics’ lineup in June of 2012, is only 1-for-September for a laughable .083 average and was just .169 in August. Moss’ last homerun was mid-summer on July 24. Since then he’s only managed three extra-base hits.

In many other losing games, there have been mental errors of not covering bases by fielders, runners in scoring position are not being brought in, and basically the bats have gone soft to a 3.3 runs per game per average in their last month (and one of those was an 11 run blow out in mid-August to inflate the stats).

With 19 to play, we all know things have to come together – pitching-hitting-fielding – for the A’s to at least maintain and survive, but unfortunately a void in at least one of those things seems to rear its ugly head game-after-game to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

I’m done with complaining, there’s a fat lady wearing an A’s hat getting ready to sing.