How To Make Sense Of Excruciating Loss After Excruciating Loss
When the normally mild mannered Scott Emerson got ejected arguing a check swing that was ruled “no swing,” it came as a surprise not only because Emo rarely shows such emotion but also because it was, at worst, a borderline call not a clear injustice.
In all likelihood, though, Emerson was not bent out of shape over the call in question. He was also harboring some resentment from a couple ball-strike calls from earlier in the game. And really, most likely he was carrying the immense frustration of 3 weeks of bizarre losses snatched from the jaws of victory.
These past 3 weeks have been a bit like the ALDS clinchers of yore, where an obstruction call here, a failure to reach home plate before passing out there, a refusal to throw your signature changeup throughout a long at bat — always one tick away from winning but ultimately rewriting history by just losing again and again and again and again.
It started in Tampa Bay with a series the A’s came within an eyelash of sweeping yet left town losers in 2 out of 3. Jose Siri is a career .219 hitter with a 34.9% K rate who has negative metrics in CF in 2024. But for 48 hours he was Willie Mays, scaling the wall to bring back a potential game winning HR, blasting a “swung on, gone” game tying HR against the formidable Mason Miller, homering twice more the next day and pretty much single-handedly securing 2 improbable wins for the Rays.
And as the A’s have continued to sputter since, just completing an 0-7 road trip and limping home with a 9 game losing streak in progress, what stands out is how many of those games not only have been winnable but in fact the A’s have looked like they were about to win.
The question posed today is: Does this reflect an unlucky team whose fortunes will surely flip soon, or does it reflect a team “just good enough to lose” and “built to fail in the end”?
As you look inside the specific games, most turn on a single moment. Dalton Varsho’s steal of 3B off of Scott Alexander set up the sac fly which tied the game between the A’s and Jays before Miller could seek a save. Toronto opened it up in the 10th and prevailed. On the road trip twice Lucas Erceg, fresh of off the IL, served up game tying HRs as the A’s were on the verge of summoning Miller. Even Miller himself proved fallible, coughing up a walk-off HR and later issuing a game tying BB with the bases loaded before settling in to dominate.
The “Half Full” Truth
Teams that lose 9-2 every day are not on the verge of turning anything around. That was the 2023 A’s, whose historically terrible run differential proved that their April and May were no fluke.
Teams that keep barely losing tend to see things start to even out over time. The losses are in the bank — coins that come up heads 9 times out of 10 don’t compensate by coming up tails 9 times out of the next 10 — but in as much as Donovan Solano could have fouled off, or gotten a bit under, the very fastball he parked in the LF seats against Erceg, next time quite possibly that’s what happens.
Yes, Austin Martin made a sensational catch over the wall yesterday to rob Shea Langeliers of a HR, but the ball had to be catchable and not another foot over the wall where even a player whose name sounds like a car couldn’t bring it back. Next time perhaps it’s a “great effort, but ...”, a 2-run HR, and eventually an A’s victory.
The reality is, it wouldn’t take much different for the A’s to be, quite literally, 5-4 over these past 9 games. With just average luck they are maybe 3-6, which is disappointing but hardly alarming.
They are, in the end, getting enough starting pitching, enough offense, enough defense, and enough relief pitching to put themselves in games they either lead or are tied in as the 27th out approaches. It means not a whole lot is required to turn it into quite a few wins instead of an avalanche of losses.
The “Half Empty” Truth
To say this is a “flawed team” is an understatement. Not one of the A’s starting pitchers belongs in the #1-2-3 spot in a rotation. In JP Sears, Mitch Spence, Joey Estes, Hogan Harris, and Luis Medina, Oakland has at best a crew of #4 and #5 SP. When he returns, Paul Blackburn can probably make a case for being a #3 SP and that’s the best it is going to get for a while.
Meanwhile, the A’s offense continues to strike out like it’s going out of style. Abraham Toro, a nice enough complementary piece on someone else’s team, has been thrust into the lead off spot while somehow Seth Brown keeps getting work in RF. Presumed #2 hitter Zack Gelof has been so erratic that he has been batting 7th, 8th, or 9th recently and is under .200 for the season.
Defensively, absent a true CFer the A’s have trotted JJ Bleday out there daily even though he belongs in a corner spot. Bleday routinely goes back initially on fly balls in front of him, which has caused middle infielders to have drift way out into short CF to bail him out. Brown looks like a beer league softball player tracking fly balls.
Miguel Andujar and Tyler Soderstrom are just trying to learn their positions and while they have done an admirable job their work comes with an understandable penchant for the occasional mistake. Max Schuemann only looks like a true shortstop if compared to the statue of Aledmys Diaz that sometimes hangs out there. And except for the brief Brett Harris era, Oakland has not put a 3Bman out there who is a true 3Bman.
As for the bullpen, while Miller and Erceg are generally solid and TJ McFarland has been excellent, the reality is that once you get into the bullpen depth it’s a coin flip and then downright ugly. Austin Adams is the coin flip — he can be dominant or he can issue walks and hit batters and fall in love with his slider until it gets smoked. Vinny Nittoli, Tyler Ferguson and Sean Newcomb offer examples of the “uh oh” nature of the soft underbelly.
Ultimately, after 74 games no matter how competitive they have been in most the reality is that this is a .220 hitting team that has whiffed 723 times, more than once per inning that puts back end starting pitchers on the mound every day in front of a rather porous defense.
Conclusion
As I typed the “Half Empty” analysis, all I could think was, “It’s kind of impressive that they have been close in all these games.” After all, there is much to criticize about the hitting, the pitching, the defense, and how many positions are manned by players who would not start every day on a contending team.
For that I actually applaud the A’s. They have been both bad and unlucky, and while the former will probably persist for a while the latter will probably turn. Maybe they are due for a couple of those improbable wins, maybe one where for no apparent reason a bad matchup produces a clutch HR late, perhaps another where our worst fielders make great plays and our .220 hitting lineup bloops and chops its way to glory.
Oakland finishes June with 12 games against, in order, the Royals, the Twins, the Angels, and the Diamondbacks. Do you believe (as I tend to) that baseball goes in ebbs and flows and that the “almost win A’s” are poised to go 8-4 merely by playing about the same but having average-to-good fortune for a change?
I would like to think so and to remove, from my right shoulder, that voice which whispers “Here we go again...” at the first sign of trouble. What do you think? Maybe 8-4 and at one point Scott Emerson watches a check swing and hollers, “Yeah ok — but it was darn close.”