Oakland Athletics Week 1 Studs & Duds
By Lance Marlow
Each and every week in Major League Baseball there will be players going through ups and downs. Players struggle and players succeed, basically, some players are studs and some players are duds. Every team will have their own studs and duds, but we’re here to focus in on the Oakland Athletics. This opening week we had some players excel and a few who didn’t quite hit the ground running. Of course this is only week 1 of a very long season, but we’re here to give props to the studs and put the duds on blast!
Studs:
Kazmir was masterful in his outing this week. I haven’t heard nearly enough praise for him. Maybe his start got swallowed up a little by others on the pitching staff, but someone’s got to give this man some recognition. Kazmir went 7 innings, gave up just 1 hit, 2 walks, and fanned 10 batters. All of his pitches were working for him, and he was locating them perfectly all night. Kazmir was an All Star last year, and if he keeps this up he should be representing the A’s in the Midsummer Classic once again.
Davis definitely seems to feel comfortable in green and gold. Not only has he played excellent defense, but he finished his first week in Oakland with a respectful .316/.435/.474 slash line. Davis ended the week with 3 XBH’s, 4 RBI’s, 4 runs, and 4 walks. This is the type of solid production that the A’s need at first base this season.
I have a feeling that Sonny is going to be on this list more often than not this season. On opening night Gray took a no-no into the 8th inning. If that doesn’t get you labeled a stud, I don’t know what does.
Honorable mentions: Drew Pomeranz, Billy Butler, Mark Canha
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- Oakland A’s giving Garrett Williams a chance
- Yonny Hernandez finds new home with Los Angeles Dodgers
- Oakland A’s add needed bullpen piece in Trevor May
Duds:
The 2015 season started a little slow for Lawrie. Although he has flashed some impressive leather at third base, his batting has left a lot to be desired. He finished the first week of the season with a pedestrian .286/.323/.424 slash line. He even succeeded at accomplishing what baseball calls the “golden sombrero” by striking out four times on only twelve pitches. I’m sure you can do the math yourself, but that’s the least amount of pitches you can possibly see in four at bats while striking out each time. In Lawrie’s defense, his bat did start to heat up towards the end of the week. I’m sure we’ll see better days from Mr. Lawrie ahead.
Craig Gentry:
Gentry started the season off by going 0 for 14 with 4 strike outs. I’m sure he wants to wipe this week out of his memory so I won’t go on too much about it.
Like I discussed here yesterday, it’s difficult to put too much weight on a kid’s first MLB start. I’m definitely not giving up on him just yet, but he did enough, or didn’t do enough, to earn himself a spot on the duds list this week. The rookie went just 3.1 innings while giving up 7 earned runs, 7 hits, 2 home runs, and just 1 strike out. Hopefully there are better days ahead for the youngster.
Elephant in the room
Each week the biggest dud of all will get the honor of being labeled the Elephant in the room. This week it was a group effort to win the award by…
The Oakland Athletics Bullpen
Every relief pitcher not named Jesse Chavez gave up at least one run this week. Just yesterday, our interim closer, Tyler Clippard gave up a game winning home run in extra innings. If we can’t trust our closer, who can we trust?! I may just be a little extra bitter about that one since I experienced that travesty in person, but still, the bullpen needs to get their act together. I’m sure by the end of this season we will look back on our ‘pen and consider it a strength of this team, but this week it’s definitely the elephant in the room.