While Athletics Hitters Lead MLB in Strikeouts, Batting Coach Sees Improvement
The facts that the A’s come into the weekend with 259 strikeouts, the most in the majors, and with 18 wins, the most in the American League, may seem at odds.
Oakland batting coach Darren Bush doesn’t see it that way. He sees the strikeouts as something of an anomaly and that by the time 60 games are in the books, another team will be at the top of the list.
“It’s a big deal to me, because I don’t like strikeouts.” Bush said Friday afternoon. “At the same time, I think a lot of us leading the league in strikeouts is because we’ve been very patient and have been taking a lot of strikes early in the count.
“You don’t do that when you’re a little bit overaggressive.“
With mostly the same group of hitters, the A’s finished 24th out of 30 teams in strikeouts a year ago when they fanned 1338 times, an average of 8.26 strikeouts per game. This year the strikeouts-per-game average is up to 9.96.
But the A’s have scored the eighth-most runs in MLB, 131, and have hit the seventh-most homers, 40. Those numbers suggest the offense has been in some ways as successful as last year, when the club won 97 games and made the postseason. In 2019, the A’s finished eighth in MLB in runs scored and fifth in homers hit.
“Last year we were really good at not striking out, at fouling off the pitch, getting another pitch to hit and essentially just making the pitcher eventually make a mistake. This year we haven’t been as good at that.
“I do expect that to change now that guys are getting more comfortable, having more success and being a little more confident in the box. I expect these number to go down just for the pure fact that these guys know that they’re good hitters. When you have that confidence of being a good hitter, you’re going to have a little bit better control. Early on we were missing pitches we could hit. We’d foul them off.”
Bush has been telling his guys to stay with it, that they’re never out of the at-bat, and it seems to be working. Oakland hitters have reached double digits 12 times in their 26 games, but have done that just once in the last five games.
And he’s got the A’s as a group not making themselves crazy about it.
Asked about the strikeout totals on Thursday, third baseman Matt Chapman, who leads the team in strikeouts with 34 strikeouts heading into the weekend, two more than center fielder Ramón Laureano.
“It doesn’t matter to us,” Chapman said. “We have the best record in the American League. That’s all that matters.”
And that’s the way Bush wants his guys to think, even as he works to keep the strikeout total down.
“How do we combat it?” Bush asked rhetorically. “We continually talk about. You're never out of the bat. Even if you get to two strikes, you have to fight to find a way to get another pitch. Eventually, he's going to make a mistake, something you can hi.
“We have to find a way to fight that pitcher off and buy another pitch.”
Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3
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