Davis Warming Up as Athletics Continue Roll; Streak at 6 Games

Veteran DH Khris Davis, who's lost his job an everyday player in July, is redeeming himself with a good August start, including two more hits and two RBI in A's 6-4 win over the Rangers Thursday.

How long is the Oakland A’s winning streak?

Well, consider that when it started, six games ago on Aug. 1, Khris Davis didn’t have a hit. He’d been 0-for-July.

Davis had two hits for his second consecutive game Thursday. The veteran DH was the driving force in the 6-4 win over Texas that moved the A’s to a 9-4 record with two-time defending AL West champion Houston coming to town for the first time this year Friday night.

Davis has lost his job, to be sure. He hasn’t started against a right-handed starting pitcher since the fifth game of the season back on July 28. He may be in the process of winning it back. He singled, homered and reached base four times in an Aug. 3 start. And while he was in the lineup because the A’s were facing a lefty in that one, his homer came against a right-hander.

Then Thursday against Texas lefty Mike Minor, he hit a second-inning bullet that was turned into an out by a brilliant diving catch by the Rangers’ Elvis Andrus. Two innings later he doubled a 2-0 lead into 4-0 with a bases-loaded single. And in the seventh, with the A’s lead at that point down to a single run, his inning-opening hit led to the A’s final run in the 6-4 win.

So, the man who went hitless in 15 July at-bats is 5-for-12 with four RBI in August. When his bat was frigid, the A’s felt the cold and got off to a 3-4 start. They are 6-0 since the calendar, and Davis, turned.

“I’ve been here before,” Davis said in a conference call interview after the game. “I’ve lost my job before a couple of times, and I’ve had to battle back. So this, this is nothing new to me."

He said he didn't like being in DH platoon, but he seems confident he can win the fulltime job back. 

Davis did two things to accentuate the turnaround. One, he didn’t get down on himself. And two, he moved his hands back at the plate. In so doing, the American League’s 2018 home run leader may have discovered the path out of the doldrums created when he was injured six weeks into the 2019 season.

“It’s a positioning thing,” Davis said. “It just put my hands back and brought them up a little. And it’s been helping me be more accurate to the ball. I’m finding less swings-and-misses and a little better contact.”

Davis ran into a fence in Pittsburgh while chasing a foul ball, and when he returned, found he’d lost both his swing and his stride, and neither ever came back as his numbers cratered. He had a dozen homers before the injury in just 38 games. He would have just 11 the rest of the 162-game season.

“We’ve just been working nonstop, trying to figure out what’s going to work,” Davis said. “I think when I got hurt, I’d been getting set up in a different way with my body, and my body just was adjusting to that injury. When I just put my hands further back, it just kind of freed things up.”

The recent success doesn’t mean that Davis will be in the lineup Friday. The Astros, knowing the importance of this series, held veteran Zack Greinke back and he’ll be pitching with an extra day’s rest against Oakland’s Chris Bassitt in the series opener. Greinke was 2-0 with a 0.69 ERA against the A’s for the Astros last year. Davis got just one of the two starts, and went 1-for-2.

Davis will certainly start Saturday against the left-handed Framber Valdez, and if that goes well, there’s a chance to see him in the lineup Sunday against the right-handed Cristian Javier.

“Yeah, he’s looked really good,” manager Bob Melvin said. “The last three games, it’s been really good since he made a little bit of an adjustment. And you know he’s pulling some balls now, he’s not late on pitches. I know he feels good about his swing right now, and so do I.”

Davis isn’t about too make too big a deal about the Astros coming to town for the first time since their 2017 sign-stealing scandal was exposed by A’s Thursday starter Mike Fiers, who was a member of the Astros back in 2017.

Still, the scam run by the Astros, who outlasted the A’s in the AL West each of the last two years even with Oakland winning 97 games each season, won’t be too far out of reach.

“I haven’t really thought about it at all, honestly,” Davis said. I’ve been just focused on a day-by-day approach and what we have to accomplish that day. This series (against the Rangers) was a good series for us and tomorrow I’ll be back at it, thinking about them.

“I don’t really care about my opinion on their sign-stealing scandal, but it is what it is.”

Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3

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