Oakland Athletics: AL West Will Be a Tight Race
Aug 2, 2013; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Athletics left fielder Yoenis Cespedes (52) and shortstop Jed Lowrie (8) celebrate after scoring against the Texas Rangers during the first inning at O.Co Colisuem. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports
As recently as July 29, everything was going swimmingly for the Oakland Athletics and their 2013 playoff hopes. The team was a season-high 20 games over .500, enjoying a six-game lead over the Texas Rangers in the AL West.
The Rangers — not content to just sit tight and see how things are going to play out down the stretch — had already traded for right-hander Matt Garza. They followed it up by nabbing Alex Rios off the waiver wire Saturday to take the place of the suspended Nelson Cruz. It paid immediate dividends as he drove in the g0-ahead run in the team’s 5-4 victory over the Astros. They’ve now won 11 of their last 12 games.
In that span, the A’s have gone 2-7, and after a loss to the Blue Jays Saturday night, they sit a half-game behind Texas in the division, with a schedule ahead of them that isn’t getting any easier.
Perhaps more troubling for their long term prognosis, Oakland’s hitting has cooled off considerably from the first half of the season, when their offense seemed to come through with whatever the team needed for a win, inherently evident in their 21-14 record in one-run games.
The A’s finished the month of July with season-worst batting splits as a team (.222/.294/.354), and although the team exploded for 14 runs Friday night against the Toronto and Josh Reddick appears to be emerging from his lengthy slump in a big way with five home runs in his last two games, several bats that played a big part in the team’s first half success — and some that didn’t — are going to have to get back on track if Oakland wants to capture their second straight division title and playoff berth.
The most glaring falloff in production has been that of Josh Donaldson. After an All-Star caliber first half, Donaldson is hitting .194 since the break, and the A’s have missed the reliability of his consistent hitting in the middle of the order. While it was always going to be difficult for the third baseman to maintain the pace he was on, he’s going to have to get back in a groove to be the catalyst he’s shown he can be for this club.
Of course, no matter what happens the rest of the way, Donaldson will still likely end up exceeding all expectations that most reasonable observers would have had for him heading into the season. The same can’t be said for Yoenis Cespedes. After a first half line of .225/.293/.505, it was safe to say that the Cuban slugger hadn’t lived up to the hype, which to be fair, was through the roof after a stellar rookie campaign. After winning the Home Run Derby and knocking balls into the stratosphere from a launching pad at Citi Field, the magnifying glass on the left fielder’s everyday performance increased tenfold, and his struggles seemed all the more perplexing to regular viewers of Oakland’s contests considering the ease with which he crushed balls into the upper deck in the competition.
The issue with Cespedes is consistency. The world has seen what he’s capable of, and now he has to put it all together on a game-by-game basis. He still has a ways to go as far as plate discipline is concerned, and he’s struggled all year when he’s gotten behind in the count. When you’re blessed with the skill set that he is, it’s going to be hard not to swing at everything, because when he makes contact all sorts of good things can happen. But his strikeout percentage on the year stands at 23.5, and if he can start to get a little more picky with the pitches he swings at, it’ll go a long way towards his overall offensive success, which will undoubtedly benefit the A’s.
While hitting and run production will likely continue to be areas of concern for Oakland, it won’t really matter if they don’t feature above average pitching. The A’s starting rotation has been one of the best in the league throughout the season, but if the recent struggles have told us anything, it’s that a pitching rotation can be a very fragile thing. For a team in the thick of a pennant race in the division, the last thing you want to see is your starters hit a wall over the last two months of the season.
Bartolo Colon has garnered consideration as a Cy Young candidate for his work on the mound this year, but he lasted only 2.2 innings in his last start against the Reds, and it’s hard to know how he’s going to hold up down the stretch at 40 years old.
A.J. Griffin has been solid for the majority of most of his starts, but his tendency to give up home runs has turned into a full-on problem. He leads the Majors in that category with 28. In his last four appearances, Griffin has given up 19 hits, and 10 of them have left the yard. At this rate, he’s in striking distance of the franchise record (40), and today he has a Sunday start against the Blue Jays, who are second in all of baseball in home runs, with seven in the first two games of this current series.
Tommy Milone has struggled on-and-off this year, and after giving up six runs on nine hits in 3.2 innings of work against the Rangers in his last start, he’s been sent to Triple-A Sacramento to try to retool and refresh, and if he comes back stronger, he’ll surely find himself in some big spots for a team that is built on a foundation of strong starting pitching. It seems very likely that this would be a temporary move for the left-hander.
If not, Sonny Gray has shown that he has the talent to hold his own as a Major League starter. In Saturday’s loss to Toronto, Gray gave up a mere four hits with two earned runs, five strikeouts and three walks. While it’s unlikely that he’ll be asked to shoulder a huge load, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen if he continues to throw like he did in his first career start.
The same could be said for Dan Straily. The right-hander has thrown well and has a respectable 4.41 ERA, but he’s taken a loss in his last four starts, and when he loses control, it’s often a downhill spiral that ends with him leaving the game around the fourth inning. It was definitely curious that he stayed with the A’s while Milone went down to Sacramento earlier this week. It’ll be interesting to see how he performs, and if he does well, whether or not Bob Melvin keeps him in the rotation.
All of this is a long way of saying that the A’s have a few concerns as they start the sprint to the finish in the divisional race with the Rangers. The acquisitions Texas made could very well end up being the difference. But unlike last year, the A’s have been in this position before. They battled through a tight race in 2012 and came out of it in the playoffs. That exact same roster (almost) is healthy and intact, and there’s no reason to think that any of these problems can’t be fixed.
Will the A’s run away with the division? The answer to that question is an emphatic no, because Texas is far too talented, but that certainly doesn’t mean Oakland doesn’t have a chance at winning a close race in late September. If last season was any indication, it should be plenty fun to watch.