To say the A’s are trying to claw their way into July would be generous. They’re 6 games under .500, the roster is thinner than it should be, and the home numbers are ugly enough to make the month’s fresh start feel more like a formality than a fix.
The AL West may be bunched up, with three teams separated by just 2 games while hovering around .500, but Oakland isn’t really part of that scrum. Numerically, sure.
In practice, not so much.
Still, there are a few things worth watching as the calendar flips.
Henry Bolte has been one of the brighter spots, and the offensive line looks good enough to back that up: a 110 wRC+, a .370 OBP, and 11 stolen bases in only 44 games. He’s also kept Lawrence Butler out of center field. The bat and the speed are real.
The defense, though, is where the eye test and the metrics aren’t quite lining up. Fangraphs has him at +2 DRS and +2 OAA, but that hasn’t matched what’s been seen on the field.
One recent example came on a shallow fly ball, when Bolte took an initial step back, then arced in and watched it drop in front of him. His sprint speed gives him a chance to recover from a lot of those mistakes, but that doesn’t mean he can keep giving away ground with poor reads and jumps.
There have been signs of progress. He’s not overthrowing the cutoff man lately, for one.
But he still doesn’t seem to take charge the way a center fielder ideally should. On a ball hit to the left-center wall, Joey Meneses missed it, and Bolte still had to get there in time to clean it up.
That kind of play says as much about Bolte’s speed as it does about the level of trust around him. The sense here is that he can be at least an average center fielder, maybe better, though the metrics may eventually settle on average.
At age 22, average at a premium spot is still plenty useful. There’s just more work to do.
The situation at third base is much uglier. Max Muncy’s defensive numbers keep sliding, and after a game in which he should have been charged with an E-5 on a hard grounder he missed to his left, the line is brutal: 342.2 innings, -12 DRS, -7 OAA. That’s 38 full games worth of evidence, and it’s not getting better.
The A’s need to stop playing him there, whether that means DHing him, benching him, or optioning him. The timing is awkward with Jacob Wilson and Zack Gelof out, but Muncy isn’t hitting enough to offset the glove anyway.
He’s sitting at .235/.299/.409 with a 32.9% K rate. The club would likely be better off with McNeil-Williams-Kuroda-Grauer or Kuroda-Grauer-Williams-Hernaiz across the infield, even if the alignment isn’t pretty.
There’s even a case to be made for Tommy White, though his AAA numbers are inflated and still below league average. The argument would be simple: White has made only 2 errors in 28 games at third, and if the A’s are going to live with limited range and a bat that’s below average, they may as well get better hands and fewer strikeouts out of the deal.
For now, though, the safest path looks like a defense-first setup, even if it leaves a rough bottom third of the order. When a team is giving up more than 6 runs a game at home - and lately 9 - run prevention has to come first.
Then there’s Jeffrey Springs, whose June was about as rough as it gets. He threw 27 innings and gave up 12 homers, which works out to one every 2.5 innings, while posting a 10.00 ERA for the month. The home line is even more alarming: a 6.79 ERA with 16 HR in 54.1 IP.
The bigger question is how this got this far. Springs has not found a sinker, or any equivalent pitch that would help keep the ball on the ground in a park that punishes fly-ball pitchers.
The A’s know where they play. They also know what kind of damage their home park can do.
Yet after 1.5 seasons, they still haven’t helped him add even a serviceable pitch to blunt the damage.
The long-ball issue is extreme enough that Springs is tied for the American League lead with 27 homers allowed, alongside Shota Imanaga. At 33, he needs a new trick, because right now the old version isn’t holding up.
There is at least one reason for a little optimism. With Shohei Ohtani’s start pushed back to Friday, the A’s get JT Ginn against a bullpen game, which at least gives them a matchup that looks favorable on paper. After how June ended, that’s enough to count as a glimmer.
In Other News...
Dodgers Fans Will Love This Wild Max Muncy Coincidence
There is a little baseball oddity attached to Max Muncy that fits right into the kind of trivia fans love to trade during a game. The name belongs to two big leaguers, one with the Dodgers and one with the Athletics, and the twist is that both players came out of the As pipeline after being drafted by Oakland.
Even stranger, the shared name is only part of the overlap. Maxwell Steven Muncy and Maxwell Price Muncy also celebrate their birthdays on Aug. 25, giving the Athletics a curious link to both versions of Max Muncy that feels almost too neat to be real, even before you get to the fact that the coincidence stops there. [Read more 🡒]
Red Sox Scramble For More Infield Help As Injuries Keep Mounting
The Red Soxs five-game winning streak disappeared in an 8-1 loss to Washington, and the bigger concern may have been what happened around the loss. Connelly Early exited after four innings with left elbow discomfort, with imaging scheduled, and the night also got testy when Willson Contreras was ejected after charging the mound following an exchange with Cade Cavalli.
All of that has only sharpened Bostons need to keep bolstering the infield, where injuries have already taken a toll all season and the starting middle infield is still a problem. A reported deal nearing the finish line would give the Red Sox another option at second and third base, with a 28-year-old infielder who has handled those spots and has been swinging a productive bat at Triple-A this year. [Read more 🡒]
Even Shorthanded The Athletics Still Have A Real Shohei Ohtani Threat
The Athletics have spent the week shuffling pieces just to keep the roster moving, promoting Joshua Kuroda-Grauer, Darell Hernaiz and Kade Morris from Triple-A Las Vegas while also placing Jacob Wilson and Tyler Soderstrom on the 10-day injured list. Jos Suarez went on the paternity list and Michael Kelly was designated for assignment, another reminder of how thin things have become for a club already trying to manage absences around Brent Rooker, Zack Gelof and Luis Severino.
Even so, Oakland still has a chance to make this matchup with the Dodgers a little more interesting than it looks on paper. J.T. Ginn is lined up to start, and the As appear set to run Shea Langeliers and Jonah Heim through the lineup against Shohei Ohtani, giving them at least a few proven bats with history against a pitcher who usually turns games into uphill climbs. [Read more 🡒]