Just Good Enough to Lose
Apr 24, 2015; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Athletics right fielder Josh Reddick (22) is tagged out at the plate by Houston Astros catcher Hank Conger (16) during the tenth inning at O.co Coliseum. The Houston Astros defeated the Oakland Athletics 5-4 in extra innings. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports
“We’re doing just enough to lose games right now,” was Oakland A’s Manager Bob Melvin’s encompassing quote to describe the play of the Oakland A’s after a three-game sweep by the Houston Astros on Sunday, April 26.
It’s never any fun to watch games being blown, whether it’s through poor late-inning defensive play, a bullpen that can’t get outs along with gift bases on balls, or, after a superb outing by a starter, lose due to no offensive production with runners in scoring position.
For the most part, the A’s are playing well enough to win and seem to be beating themselves with poor fielding, lowly relief pitching, and weak execution. Rarely have there been any blowouts like last Tuesday’s 14-1 loss to the Angels.
At 8-12, four games under .500, the team has lost all of its eight games decided by two runs or less. This is highlighted by a bullpen corps that already has six losses in the first four weeks of the season and is only 1-for-4 in save opportunities.
In the A’s eight wins, the bi-polar effective relievers have allowed just one earned run in 23 1/3 innings. In their 12 losses, they’ve surrendered 29 earned runs in 37 innings.
Defense continues to hamstring the team providing gift runs leading MLB with 20 errors in 20 games—and that’s not to mention the misplayed balls and poor routes taken that weren’t charged as miffs.
The A’s have shown they can compete in close games but somehow shoot themselves in the foot.
After a superb outing of seven scoreless innings by Scott Kazmir on Friday against the Houston Astros, the team fell behind when reliever Dan Otero surrendered two runs in the 10th but the offense was able to rally to tie the game, Enter Eric O’Flaherty who walked his first two batters and ultimately offered up a go-ahead, two-run single to Robbie Grossman surrendering three runs. The A’s rallied for two in the bottom of the inning and fell short.
After Saturday’s debacle by pitcher Kendall Grossman giving up six runs through the fifth inning and the A’s never being in a 9-3 loss, Sunday’s game the A’s actually had leads at various points of the game fighting off a first time sweep by the Astros.
Going into the ninth with a one-run lead, Tyler Clippard gave up a leadoff single to Jake Marisnick, and Jose Altuve reached on a fielder’s choice groundball to third baseman Brett Lawrie who for some reason threw wildly to second when Marisnick was running on the pitch. After a double-steal advanced the runners, George Springer struck out and Jed Lowry was walked. With two strikes on him, xx Gattis lifted a chin-high pitch to center that initially looked like would be a sacrifice fly to sure-handed and fleet-footed center fielder Sam Fuld, but Fuld stumbled causing the ball to go over his head resulting in two runs scoring and the A’s losing the lead and eventually the ballgame.
Even the previous series against the Angels typified that the team is beating themselves.
One would think when your starting pitchers tosses a one-hitter, your team would win the game. Not so last Thursday (4/23) when Jesse Chavez stepped in with a spot start but no run support in a 2-0 loss. The one hit, a homer, came after throwing error by Lowrie. In the game the A’s, who had eight hits, stranded 10 base runners and went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position, twice leaving a runner at third base.
For now, there’s still a lot of baseball left – more than five months – however unless the reigns are tightened and fundamentally strong baseball starts getting played fans will still cringe. One good thing on the horizon is veteran players may soon be off the DL.