Things Are Shaping Up For The Athletics In The AL West

This season the Houston Astros were expected to be a non-factor in the the American League West. The Astros are living up to those expectations as they currently have the American League’s worst record at 14-28. Houston’s last place spot in the AL West has them currently behind the Athletics by 12 games. After signing All-Star second baseman Robinson Cano in  the off-season, the Seattle Mariners were expected to be an improved baseball team, but would it be enough for them to contend in the American League West? The Mariners are currently 20-21, but they are near the bottom of all of the major offensive categories in the AL. Since 2008, the Texas Rangers have finished no worse than second in the American League West. But fate might have dealt the Rangers a cruel hand this year as their starting rotation has been decimated by injuries and Rangers manager Ron Washington is running out of spit and glue in the effort to keep it together. The Angels are only 3.5 games behind the Athletics, but they are still without outfielder Josh Hamilton who has been on the disabled list since April 8.

The A’s have not been able to avoid the injury bug either as starting pitcher Jarrod Parker is out for the entire 2014 MLB season as he underwent Tommy John surgery. But under general manager Billy Beane, the Athletics have tremendous pitching depth.

This season Athletic starting pitchers Sonny Gray and Scott Kazmir each have 5 wins which is tied for fourth overall in the AL. The Athletics team earned run average of 2.99 is tops in the American League. Oakland’s pitching is also leading the Junior Circuit is quality starts (28), and opponents batting average (.219). For the month of May the Athletics pitching staff have only given up more than five runs in two games with one of those contests being an extra inning affair.

Offensively this Athletics team will not remind anyone of the “Bash Brothers” from the late 1980’s and 1990’s, but they are more than holding their own. Currently the Athletics offense ranks first in the AL in runs (216), runs batted in (201), on-base percentage (.343), and on-base plus slugging (.760). Entering play today the A’s are also second in hits (379), and home runs (47). The Athletics have won seven out of their last eight ball games and over that stretch they have scored 52 runs including their 11-0 clobbering of the Cleveland Indians last night.

To the casual baseball fan Athletics third baseman Josh Donaldson is not a household name, but what he has become is a threat in the heart of the Oakland lineup. This season Donaldson’s 10 home runs are tied for fourth in the American League while his 31 runs batted in are currently fifth. Last season Donaldson batted .301 with 24 home runs and 93 runs batted in as he finished fourth in the AL MVP voting. Like Donaldson, the Athletics as a whole do not have household names throughout their lineup, but the likes of outfielders Yoenis Cespedes and Josh Reddick along with infielders Jed Lowrie and Brandon Moss have kept this team going.

When Beane took over as the A’s general manager in 1998, he knew that he was going to have to do things a little differently in order to compete with the big-market clubs like the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Beane developed “Moneyball” which was first described in the award winning book by Michael Lewis and also on the big screen starring Brad Pitt. Beane became a student of studying the stats that others at the time didn’t pay that much attention to such as on-base percentage.

Beane developed the Athletics into a contender with this philosophy as from 2000-2006, Oakland had six seasons in which they won at least 90 games. Beane and the Athletics ran into a rut as the team suffered four losing seasons in five years from 2007-2011, but he found the perfect field general to lead his team in current A’s manager Bob Melvin. At each stop during his 11-year managerial career, Melvin has won. In 2003 Melvin led the Mariners to 93 wins in the regular season, but they fell short of the postseason by two games. In 2007 Melvin took the Arizona Diamondbacks to their first National League Western Division Title since 2002. After Bob Geren was fired as the Athletics manager in 2011 following a 27-36 start, Beane tabbed Melvin as the team’s next skipper. Like the players that he manages, Melvin was found on baseball’s scrap heap by Beane who has a reputation of finding diamonds in the rough.

Although we are still in the month of May, the Athletics could be a team that makes it to October. The past few years saw them give the Detroit Tigers all that they could handle in the American League Divisional Series before bowing out in five games each time. Like the Athletic teams that dominated the regular season in the early 2000’s, the A’s in the past few years have been missing the boost to get them over the hump in October, but maybe this is the year that things change in the Bay Area for the green and gold.