Nothing Was Working For the A's in May

The 2025 season was supposed to be one of achieving new heights for the Athletics, but after a dreadful month of May, they're right where they were last season at this time. In 2024, the club went 23-36 in their first 59 games, and that is the exact record they have currently, as the calendar flips to June. They also finished last season with 69 wins, while this year the goal was to reach .500.

To reach that goal of an 81-win season, the A's would have to win at least 56.3% of their remaining 103 games, which also happens to be a 91-win pace over the course of a full season. It's not impossible, and the likelihood of it happening may depend on what the club decides to do at July's trade deadline.

So let's talk about the month of May, which may have set the franchise on a different course than the one they began the season on.

After a 16-15 month of March/April, the club was right where they were hoping to be, and that included a number of tough matchups against some of the best teams in baseball. It was a terrific beginning to the season. They even started off well in May, going 4-1, before finishing it off by going 3-20 the rest of the way, ultimately finishing with a 7-21 record.

The month included an 11-game losing streak, which was snapped last Sunday against the Philadelphia Phillies, followed by another five straight defeats at the hands of the Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays on the road.

The month really took a turn during the Mariners series. The A's won the first game, 7-6, but the final two games of the series were coming as the team had been playing extremely well, and their top bullpen guys were a little taxed. The A's were also at the tail end of playing 16 straight days without an off-day, and the bullpen gave up late leads in the final two games, costing the club the series.

They'd had a chance to sweep the Mariners and move into first, but instead they lost a game in the standings and went into a free fall.

The A's just didn't click on the different phases of the game very often this past month. If the starters were solid, then the bullpen or the offense faltered. If the offense was scoring runs, then the starters gave the lead right back, or didn't go deep into the game, leaving the bullpen to eat chunks of innings routinely.

This has been encapsulated by the A's most recent losses to the Blue Jays, in which the offense has produced seven runs in back-to-back contests, but the pitching hasn't been able to hold Toronto to fewer than eight runs in any of the three games in the series to date.

The A's were an average run-scoring team in May, putting 117 runs across the plate, which ended up ranking them No. 14 in the game and No. 7 in the American League. Being ranked in the middle is usually a pretty good way to be an average team in the league, which is kind of the A's overall goal for the season.

The big difference has been that the pitching staff as a whole wasn't close to league average. As a collection, the A's finished last in ERA with a 6.88, nearly a full run higher than the Colorado Rockies, who have won a total of nine games this season and play in the notoriously hitter-friendly Coors Field. The A's have been giving up three runs a game more than the league average teams.

That combination of average offense and truly awful pitching is what leads a team to a 7-21 stretch.

Part of the reason for the slumping staff is that they gave up the most home runs in the game last month, with 56 dingers allowed--ten more than the second-highest total. The good news is that in less than a week they'll get to play the No. 29 ranked club, the Baltimore Orioles, at Sutter Health Park.

To add to the home run total, the A's also gave up the third-most walks (110) and the second-most hits (283), so when the opposition was connecting, there was a decent chance it was for more than one run. Opposing hitters batted .286 against the A's last month.

The Sacramento club had two players--Jacob Wilson and Gio Urshela--bat at or above that mark in May, and Urshela went just 6-for-21 (.286) before landing on the IL on May 23.

Three players held a 0.00 ERA for the A's last month, with those three being backup catcher Willie MacIver in a blowout this week, T.J. McFarland, who pitched in a pair of games before landing on the IL, and Sean Newcomb, who has made one appearance for the club in relief after being acquired this week.

Jeffrey Springs had a solid month, posting a 3.58 ERA for the club across six starts (32.2 innings), and right behind him on the team's ERA leaderboard was Hogan Harris (3.86), who made it into 12 games out of the bullpen in May. Both Justin Sterner (6.94) and Tyler Ferguson (7.71) were called upon 13 times.

A's starters ranked No. 18 in innings pitched with 301.2, putting up a 5.40 ERA, which ranked No. 28. The relievers ranked No. 5 in innings pitched (221.2) and held a 6.05 ERA, which ranked No. 29, ahead of the Los Angeles Angels.

Even All-Star closer Mason Miller struggled in May, posting a 10.38 ERA and notching a couple of losses.

The whole month was pretty bad all the way around. The pitching was the main culprit here, but even when they'd get a good outing, like the one from Jacob Lopez against the Phillies last Friday, they ended up losing 4-3 after the teams traded three-run ninth innings off the bullpens.

The hope is certainly that June will be a better month for the club, but they've been cycling through the arms on their 40-man roster consistently for weeks now, and nobody has seemed to have an answer.

In order to get the bullpen right, the starters are going to have to start going at least five innings consistently. That'll be the first step forward for the club. From there, the bullpen can pitch more regularly with some off-days and not be called upon to just go out there and eat some innings to save some other arms.

This past month has been one of the worst in recent franchise history, and that includes the year in which they won just 50 games in 2023. The one worrisome factor here is that it's just now starting to warm up in Sacramento, so the ball may start to travel a little more.