Faster Start Essential for A's 2020 Hopes

All three AL division champs are on the schedule in the first three weeks, and the Athletics know they have to start more quickly if they're going to keep up.

The A’s season starts in just under three weeks. The Minnesota Twins visit on March 26 to open the season, followed by the Houston Astros.

Then it’s off to Minnesota and down to visit the Angels before coming back to square off with the Yankees, Red Sox and Seattle on the second homestand.

Does any team in baseball have a tougher first three weeks? Probably not. The A’s get all three American League division champs in the first 16 games, seven against the Central champion Twins and three each against the East champion Yankees and West champion Astros. The only non-contender from last year in the mix is the Angels, who have upgraded drastically, the centerpiece of which is third baseman Anthony Rendon, who had 126 RBI for the Nationals last year.

The A’s won 97 games last year, and feel they are better, but those three teams averaged 104 wins last year: 107 for the Astros, 103 for the Yankees and 101 for the Twins.

So, it’s going to be the equivalent of climbing K-2 in cleats.

The A’s will tell anyone who will listen in their Mesa, Ariz., camp that they see themselves as pushing past the Astros, claiming the West title and pushing toward the club’s first World Series berth since 1989.

The first 16 games will give the A’s an idea of just how realistic that vision is.

The trouble is that the A’s, winners of 97 games in each of the last two seasons, have limped through April (and May and the first half of June) both times before turning it on. It doesn’t seem like the best idea to wait to hit the after-burners.

“Everybody right now is trying to get into midseason form as quickly as possible,” starting pitcher Mike Fiers told the A’s media scrum after pitching four one-run innings against the Dodgers Thursday. “We know how the team has started the past couple of year, just kind of slowly.

“Everybody is trying to turn it up a little bit, to go to that next level early in the season, so once the season starts were not like lackadaisical or we’re not all there. It’s kind of hindered us the last couple of years.”

That it has. The A’s were 14-18 in March/April last year and a modestly better 14-14 in those months two years ago.

To make up for it, the A’s had to go 60-29 from June 17 on last year to earn a Wild Card berth. Two years ago, they had to go 62-29 after June 15. In both cases, the records down the stretch were the best in the American League.

It’s good for a team to know that having double-digit deficits – 10.5 games out at the time of the turnaround last year, 11.5 games out two years ago – isn’t insurmountable. But it would be good for the A’s if they didn’t have to climb that particular mountain again.