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Why the Oakland Athletics Should Still Be Concerned

The Oakland Athletics are ripping through their schedule at a record clip. With a 34-22 record and a 3.5 game lead in the American League West, the A’s are among the best teams in baseball. They boast a ridiculous +112 run differential through 56 games. To put that into perspective, the eventual World Series Champion Boston Red Sox led baseball with a +197 differential through the entire 2013 season. 

The domination has been real. Oakland ranks first in baseball in runs and on-base percentage. It also ranks first in ERA, WHIP and batting average against. So why are we writing an article titled “Why Oakland Athletics Fans Should Still Be Concerned?” It’s rather simple, this is a team that has still had its fair share of issues in the postseason over the past two seasons…mainly against Justin Verlander and the Detroit Tigers. Well, completely against Justin Verlander and the Detroit Tigers.

Which brings us to our first point.

While Brandon Moss and Josh Donaldson are both on pace for well over 120 RBI’s and 30 homers each, these two have struggled big time in the postseason over the past two years. If they’re not able to start connecting against the best baseball has to offer from a pitching standpoint, the A’s will be dead in the water come October.

And that’s been the primary issue for Oakland against the Tigers in the past two October’s.

Hitting Against Elite Pitching

Despite taking Detroit to five games, the Athletics hit .217 as a team in the ALDS last season. Donaldson and Moss went a combined 5-for-39 (.128) with just one RBI in that series. Meanwhile, the A’s struck out 57 times in 166 at-bats for a staggering 34.3 percent strikeout rate.

While many will conclude that’s because they went up against a top-notch Tigers pitching staff, that’s precisely the point. It’s one thing to beat up against the Los Angeles Angels bullpen. It’s a completely different thing to step up to the plate against the Justin Verlander’s and Max Scherzer’s of the world.

Cespedes actually did perform well in the playoffs last year. He was second on the A’s in batting average at .381 and tallied four RBI’s in five games. In fact, Coco Crisp and Cespedes accounted for 43 percent of the A’s RBI’s in the series. Donaldson and Moss combined to strikeout 21 times in 39 at-bats. That’s simply not going to get it done.

Oakland’s struggles at the plate against top-tier pitching has extended into the 2014 regular season. It has only faced two teams, the Washington Nationals and Seattle Mariners, who rank in the top-10 of baseball in team ERA. Oakland is 8-5 in 13 games against those two teams this year. It has tallied an average of 3.9 runs against Washington and Seattle. Taking it a step further, Oakland is just 5-5 in 10 games against the Mariners, who is the only American League team outside of itself that ranks in the top-10 in team ERA.

On the other hand, Oakland is 8-4 in 12 games against pitching staffs that rank in the bottom five of baseball in team ERA. It is averaging nearly five runs in those 12 games. Notice the difference here? One run might not seem like a whole heck of a lot, but it really is in the grand scheme of things. It could be the difference in a one-run game (more on that later).

Bullpen

Courtesy of SF Gate: 2014 has been a cluster mess for Johnson.

On the surface, Oakland’s bullpen is among the best in baseball. It ranks fifth in the majors in ERA and second in batting average against. That’s fine and dandy, but Oakland has tallied the third-most blown saves in baseball with nine and is 1-8 in those nine outings. Give the A’s a decent back end of the bullpen (or just take Jim Johnson out of the equation) and they would have a much better record about a third of the way through the season.

For his part, Johnson’s splits are utterly horrible. He’s given up about 10 percent of Oakland’s earned runs while only pitching about four percent of its innings. Think about that for a second. As the second-highest paid player on the A’s roster, Johnson is either going to have to start performing up to level or face the real possibility of being relegated to mop-up duty.

If so, the A’s simply don’t have an experienced closer to take over late in the game. Luke Gregerson and Sean Doolittle have a combined seven saves on the season. Each have had their issues here and there, but have been pretty good up to this point. Can the A’s bank on that moving forward? That’s the bigger question.

Close Games

With such a huge run difference, why doesn’t Oakland boast the best record in baseball? Well the answer to this question is rather simple. It has blown out a ton of teams throughout the season, but continues to struggle in closer games. Oakland is 11-15 in games decided by two runs or less and 23-7 in games that are decided by more than two runs. That’s a ridiculous split.

Again, we can focus on the bullpen when it comes to this. Of the games 15 games Oakland has lost by two runs or less, eight were the product of blown saves. This means that the A’s were winning late in the game, only to fall victim to a comeback from the opponent. In order to be considered World Series favorites, the A’s are going to have to start winning more close games.

Every baseball team has its issues. We aren’t talking about a single dominating team in MLB at this point, but the A’s are darn close to that. They have the pitching, the hitting, the power and some strong arms in the bullpen. They play good defense, are patient at the plate and know when to turn the jets on.

With that said, like every other team in majors, Oakland has its downfalls. Unfortunately, we have won’t know whether these issues will be magnified in the playoffs until October rolls around. Until then, Bob Melvin’s squad needs to continue what it’s doing and Billy Beane must to look to potentially upgrade some of the areas mentioned above. Until then, we still have to be a tad concerned about their ability to win when it counts the most against good pitching in the playoffs.

Oakland has now gone from a feel-good story to a top contender for the World Series. Whether it wins 95 or 100 games during the regular season doesn’t really matter. We need to see this team start to perform well against top-notch pitching and hold leads late in games. Once it starts doing that, these concerns will be muted. Until then, they will be there.

Photo: Golden Gate Sports

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