The Oakland A's Are Playing Pretty Good Baseball
After matching their season-high in runs (12) and their largest margin of victory (9) against the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday, the Oakland Athletics are 13-13 over their last 26 games. That may not seem like a huge accomplishment to most teams, but given the A's overall record of 25-63, this has been an enormous and welcome turn of events.
Early on in the season there were members of the clubhouse that felt that the pre-season projections were off and that this team wasn't being given enough credit. With the returns of Paul Blackburn to the rotation on May 29, and veteran reliever Trevor May to the bullpen a week before that, this team has been a lot closer to their own expectations.
Mark Kotsay has said many times throughout the course of the season that the guys are putting in the work, but they just haven't been seeing the results. Ryan Noda said after a game in the middle of May "It's the game of baseball. You have to be confident to play this game. You have to come with the right mindset every day. I think we do that, and we just feed off each other." The clubhouse has kept the right mentality all season, and now it's paying off.
One of the team leaders that Noda has pointed to on multiple occasions this season, Tony Kemp, has had a lot to do with the team's recent resurgence. Since June 6 when this 13-13 stretch began, Kemp has a 152 wRC+ (100 being league average), 16 runs scored, and has walked twice as much as he has struck out. He's also batting .305 with a .388 on-base percentage (OBP).
J.J. Bleday has also been warming up again, posting a 119 wRC+. He's also the only A's player to have double-digit runs (10) and rbi (13) in this timeframe. While his .218 batting average will leave the baseball purists wanting more, his 19.2% walk rate leaves him with a .370 OBP, which is plenty good.
Recently called up Tyler Wade is batting .393 in 28 plate appearances, and also scored from second on a mishandled grounder up the middle on Saturday, showing just a glimpse of what he brings to the club.
Seth Brown, Ryan Noda, and Jace Peterson have been roughly league average during this run, and all of a sudden that's a fairly deep, competent lineup that the A's are running out day after day.
On the pitching side, Paul Blackburn has been solid, posting a 4.00 ERA in 27 innings, while the league average ERA for starters this year sits at 4.45.
The league average ERA this season for pitchers (both starters and relievers combined) is 4.31. 10 of the 17 pitchers the A's have used in the in this 26-game span have been at least league average. Hogan Harris (4.50 ERA) has been right about league average for a starter, and Lucas Erceg (4.85 ERA) has had scoreless outings in 10 of his 12 appearances.
After not recording an out against the New York Yankees last week while allowing five runs (four earned), Erceg said, "You kinda just have to show up knowing that you still have a job to do and what happened yesterday is meant to stay in the past. At the end of the day, I'm still in the big leagues. I still have an opportunity to have a lot of success.'
Of the five remaining pitchers to have gotten into a game, Kyle Muller has been optioned back to Triple-A Las Vegas, Yacksel Ríos is on the IL, Chad Smith was DFA'd, and Richard Lovelady missed a chunk of time on the IL and has only totaled 3 2/3 innings. So overall, the A's staff has been pretty solid.
Shintaro Fujinami has also turned the corner as a reliever, posting a 2.53 ERA across his last 10 2/3 while averaging 99.5 miles per hour on his heater. He leads the team in wins with five on the season, while no other pitcher has more than two. Fuji is also tied for the team lead in losses with Luis Medina at seven. He still holds a 9.35 ERA on the year, but he's been showing flashes recently of just how impactful an arm he can be.
The A's still rank last in baseball in team ERA this season with a 5.95, but in this timeframe, the team has a 4.32 ERA and ranks 17th in baseball. That's better than the Astros, Rangers, Mets, Diamondbacks, Orioles, Dodgers, and a slew of other non-playoff teams.
For what it's worth, the A's are a .500 team against the AL Central this season, and that includes a 1-5 record against the Cleveland Guardians. Oakland has taken two of three from the Royals and White Sox, and has won the first two games of their series against Detroit this week. Even while losing five of six to the Guardians, they were only outscored by 9 runs total, and five of those runs came in a single loss.
Oakland has scored 67 runs against the Guardians, Sox, and Royals while allowing 72. Including their two-game set against the Tigers, the A's have a positive run differential with 80 runs scored and 75 allowed. That's a +5, compared to their -227 overall. Sure, they haven't played the team atop the standings in the 45-43 Minnesota Twins, but it feels safe to say that if the A's were in the AL Central they'd have a much better record on the season. Both the White Sox and Tigers, teams the A's have played well against, are 15-11 against the Central this season.
Finally, with the win on Wednesday, the A's pulled within a half-game of the Royals for the second-worst record in baseball and could shed the title of the worst team this season by the end of Thursday's games.