No, not because of the score, humiliating as it was, and not because of the venue, which “is what it is” and was always going to be that. It’s the decisions that were made with full knowledge of the context that make fans rightly wonder who is minding the store.
The fact is, fans don’t actually want to be smarter than management — they want to pretend to be, but they want to be wrong because they want their team to be well run. One of the worst aspects of fandom is the helpless feeling of watching decisions you know are dumb but can do nothing to control.
Fortunately, most often fans “know that they’re smarter” but in fact are only smarter in hindsight. It’s when foresight is 20/20 that nerves are touched even in a game that winds up being a loss by 2 touchdowns. Let’s count the number of obvious blunders that were blunders before they happened — and then showed why.
1. As I proclaimed loudly, before the home stand began, to anyone who would listen (nobody), the last thing you wanted to do was to line up Jeffrey Springs to start twice in a 6-game home stand in the launching pad that is Summerlin. JT Ginn would have been on turn, Mason Barnett could have pitched in tandem as part of a bullpen game, and Springs could have been pushed back to Monday.
Predictably, Springs got shelled again for 8 runs and 3 HR in 4 IP — with 2 of the HRs coming on exit velocities that needed a boost from the desert air.
2. I will accept that Nick Kurtz needed a day off of 1B because he has had so little time off the field and you can’t begrudge needed rest, even though you were looking at a game against an opponent you had a great chance to beat with a chance to move into a 1st place tie. But given the extreme heat and fatigue factor, you have to allow for it.
Where the front office failed was in constructing a roster without a real back up 1Bman, which led Mark Kotsay to opt for Jeff McNeil at 1B. It only took until the top of the 1st for the idea to backfire, as McNeil couldn’t pull in a bad throw from Muncy that a taller or more accomplished 1Bman catches on the bag.
Where Kotsay failed was in not making the more logical move and going with Tyler Soderstrom, no great 1Bman but one with experience at the position and the physical traits for the job. Speaking of which…
3. The A’s could not have put a more absurd defense on the field behind their pitchers. You had Max Muncy and Jeff McNeil on the corner infield, the combo that predictably allowed for 2 unearned runs to score early.
The A’s continue to act as if Lawrence Butler is a viable option in CF and that Carlos Cortes won’t hurt you in RF. Back when the game was still very winnable, Butler fanned on a drive that Henry Bolte runs down, then proceeded to look like a Little Leaguer out there the rest of the afternoon. Cortes did as well later in the game, but you can at least blame the sun/wind for playing a part and by then no one really cared about the results anyway.
Overall the defense was an absolute joke — just as it was on paper so no one should have been the least bit surprised. How could Kotsay have better navigated the personnel he had available to him? You put Soderstrom at 1B, McNeil at 2B, Gelof at 3B, Cortes in LF, Bolte in CF, Butler in RF.
Suddenly you have exactly nobody playing out of position (even if your 1Bman and LFer aren’t the strongest fielders) and you have swapped Muncy out for Bolte the day after Bolte put together several excellent plate appearances and there was really no reason to sit him.
With that defense behind a SP who isn’t an extreme fly ball pitcher with severe HR tendencies, the A’s would have had a shot today against a bad pitcher who was getting hit hard. Now would the A’s have won? Likely not in that most probably today was a game where at some point the A’s were going to turn to Luis Medina in the middle innings and Medina was just awful. So maybe you lose anyway — but not in a way where the front office and manager are exposed for not knowing how to assemble or employ a roster.
Moving forward, if the A’s want to stay in contention for anything they are going to have some difficult decisions to make because they can’t continue to carry too much dead weight on their roster and expect to distance themselves from the .500 mark — at least not in the direction they are hoping.
In a game that featured 39 hits, McNeil went 0 for 3 with a couple weak fly balls to LF. It’s getting harder and harder to justify penciling him in as his slump reaches 0 for 20 and he has just 4 hits, all singles, in his last 51 at bats. And more troubling is how weak most of his contact has been in those 51 at bats.
Also, Scott Barlow’s smoke and mirrors act is running out of steam. The A’s suddenly have the trappings of a much improved bullpen thanks to the apparent emergence of Elvis Alvarado and Mason Barnett, but Barlow’s last 5 appearances speak for themselves: 4.1 IP, 8 hits, 9 ER, 4 BB, 3 K, 3 HR. Summerlin can only be blamed so much.
Colby Thomas’ season line is down to .241/.290/.379 (.670 OPS) as opposing pitchers have gotten a clear book on him: throw balls and let him swing at them. Thomas is now 3 for his last 26 with 2 BB and 9 K (32.1% K rate). And he’s hardly making up for it in the field, where he sports a -3 DRS and -1 OAA in RF.
So there’s 3 roster spots the A’s need to make some tough decisions around as the calendar turns to mid-June and the prevailing phrase is “It’s not early anymore.”
But what the A’s need to do first and foremost is to put their players in a position to succeed and that means understanding where they can play on the diamond and how their skill set matches the environment where the game is being played. Today’s game should be a wake up call that these things actually matter. A lot.
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