Ouch. The Oakland Athletics rolled into Colorado riding high off a 4-game series sweep of Texas only to lose two straight games for the first time since mid-June.
The wheels have undeniably fallen off for the Oakland Athletics. Look at Twitter over the last couple of days: it’s all doom and gloom for a team that watched their unbeaten streak over the last 11 series come to a close.
After watching our team win 27 out of 34 games, this two-game stretch feels like a punch in the gut, doesn’t it? Where did we go wrong? How could this happen? Is it time to push the panic button?
No. Absolutely not. This is baseball. It’s a grueling 162-game schedule played out over six months full of peaks and valleys. The season ebbs and flows endlessly until late September and only then do we have a true body of work before us to evaluate.
We do know a team can’t run this hot for too long. There was always going to be some regression. A cooling off period. The real question is, what can we draw from these two losses at Coors Field?
Brett Anderson
I keep hoping to find some clarity in my assessment of what Brett Anderson brings to the starting rotation but it’s been a struggle this season. Last night against the Rockies he gave up more home runs (2) than he had strikeouts (1).
Anderson’s ERA sits at a dismal 5.55. Opponents are batting .340 against him. He’s given up 22 earned runs in 35.2 innings. There’s just nothing good to hold onto here.
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It’s been three years since Anderson last put together a season with an ERA under 5.13. I recognize the wrinkle having a lefty on the mound brings, but would Anderson still be in the starting rotation at this point if he was a right-hander?
When Anderson is on the mound, base traffic is heavy, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that a crooked number is just waiting to be posted on the scoreboard.
Unless a new starter comes our way before the trade deadline, it’s time to bump Anderson from his spot and give Daniel Mengden another opportunity.
The bats have gone cold
Can we call it that? It’s been two games. What a dramatic misrepresentation on my part. Completely unfair. Instead let’s call it what it is. A blip on the radar. Bats get hot and bats go cold a dozen times over during the course of a season. We just happen to be on the downside of a good run at the moment.
It is fair to examine what problems the offense has had over the last two nights, none greater than our inability to hit with runners in scoring position. Susan Slusser, the A’s beat writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, tweeted the following during last night’s game.
A's strand two more men, now 2 for 18 with RISP in the two games vs. Rockies so far.
— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) July 29, 2018
This isn’t Oakland Athletics’ baseball. Our bread and butter this season has been timely hitting. If we look a bit closer at the offense we see that several players have hit a slow down period after the offensive performance the A’s put on in Texas.
- Khris Davis: 1 for his last 10 ab’s
- Jed Lowrie: 2 for his last 13 ab’s
- Matt Olson: 1 for his last 21 ab’s
- Stephen Piscotty: 1 for his last 11 ab’s
It’s difficult to have continuity in the offense or bring runners home when nearly half the bats in the lineup have fallen quiet.
What does it mean? If I had to put my finger on it, I’d say the offense is tired. The Athletics faced near 100-degree temps each of the four games in Texas.
When you factor in the energy expended to sweep the Rangers in historic fashion, two of them dramatic come-from-behind victories, you can begin to understand how there might have been a drop-off in production as they arrived in Denver.
Winning, the way this team has won over the last month, can be exhausting. And that’s it. That’s all there is to see here. The grind of the regular season in full force. Sometimes, even Red Bull can’t get you through.
Glass half full
We’ll go the optimistic route here. With these two losses, the Oakland Athletics lost exactly zero ground in the AL West or in the race for the WildCard. Both Houston and Seattle decided to lose two games right along with us.
For now, let’s stay focused on leaving Denver with a win this afternoon, then getting back to Oakland for some home cooking against the Blue Jays for three games.
If that isn’t enough excitement for you, there is also the small matter of a trade deadline coming in two days… you know, if adding new pieces to the puzzle for a playoff run is the type of thing that interests you.