Oakland Athletics Losing Patterns Emerge Against the Pirates
By Mark Sigmon
“Swing and a miss and that’s the ballgame…and that’s the weekend. And it was not a very good weekend for the Oakland Athletics…” Those were Glen Kuiper’s words right after Coco Crisp struck out in the bottom of the ninth to end the game on Sunday. It was just a very bad weekend for the A’s.
The A’s continue a frustrating pattern. They play just well enough to give their fans some hope, and then they lay down and play dead. Another frustrating pattern is whatever team they happen to be playing, just happens to get hot when they go up against the A’s. It is very easy for A’s fans to get very discouraged about 2016.
One discouraging aspect to the A’s season has been the pitching of Sonny Gray. He missed his Opening Night start, and he just has not seemed like himself this season. In Friday night’s game, he gave up seven earned runs. I’m not too worried about Sonny Gray.
It always befuddles me when a major league pitcher hangs a curve ball. A hanging curve ball just spins up to the plate straight and flat. Major League hitters can hammer a hanging curve every time. So what happens to cause a major league pitcher to hang a curve? I have discussed this topic with friends who have played minor league or college ball. Apparently, when throwing a curve, the ball has to come off your finger tips just right. It’s complicated and a pitcher has to snap off the curve perfectly for it to be an effective pitch.
It is pretty clear to me that Gray has lost the feel for his curve ball. He is not throwing hanging curves, but he is leading the league…by far…in wild pitches. Sometimes Gray throws a perfect curve and then sometimes a pitch bounces three feet in front of the plate. So I’m not too worried about Gray. He is an All-Star pitcher and he has the talent. He has just lost his feel for his curve ball. When he gets that back, he’ll be fine.
Another sad trend of 2016 has been plain bad luck. Maybe it will all even out in the second half of the season. In Saturday’s game, the A’s just had some really bad luck. Josh Reddick went 4-4. His biggest hit came in the bottom of the fifth. With two outs and Jed Lowrie on first, Reddick hit a long drive to deep right that somehow ended up in a little hole at the base of the wall. I thought it was actually a bad call from the ump, but I guess the ball was out of play.
Pirates right fielder, Sean Rodriguez, made a smart play by throwing up his hands right away. It was incredibly bad luck. First off, Lowrie was running all the way and he would have scored from first if the ball hadn’t gone in that little hole. Secondly, you could not throw a ball into that hole if you tried. Heck, you could not even roll a ball into that hole from five feet away. But for that unfortunate “hole in one,” the A’s would have won that game 3-2 instead of losing it 4-2 in extra innings.
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Sunday’s game captured everything that has gone wrong with the A’s season so far. It was a discouraging game. The Athletics got a solid pitching performance from a rookie, Daniel Mengden. Forced into the rotation because of so many injuries, Mengden has been a pleasant surprise and he has pitched tremendously. Unfortunately, he has a record of 1-3.
That is because, once again, the A’s hitters made a mediocre pitcher, Francisco Liriano, look like the reincarnation of Cy Young. Liriano has been averaging four walks a game for the last two months. He gave up one walk on Sunday. The A’s did him a big favor by swinging at the first pitch, hitting early in the count and swinging with a 3-0 count.
After they fell behind 4-3, the A’s had the tying run on third with less than two outs in the sixth and the seventh inning. In the sixth, the A’s just had bad luck when Stephen Vogt lined into a double play at first base. But in the seventh inning with the tying run on third and no outs, the A’s failed to score. Marcus Semien struck out, Reddick popped out, and Danny Valencia struck out.
And, as has become so typical of this season, the bullpen let a close game get out of reach. John Axford allowed a two run blast to David Freese in the top of the eighth to make it a 6-3 game, and the A’s went down meekly after that. It really hurts to say this, but the Pirates’ bullpen is everything the A’s pen was supposed to be this season. The bullpen has become a liability for the A’s.
So the A’s went down to Anaheim and went 3-1, and then they played San Francisco and went 3-1. After winning six out of seven games, they promptly dropped four in a row.
The A’s will head out to Minnesota to play three games against the team with the worst record in baseball. Let’s hope the A’s can get hot against the Twins.