The A’s can point to injuries, and plenty of them, but that explanation only goes so far.
Yes, Jacob Wilson and Zack Gelof have missed time. Tyler Soderstrom and Luis Severino have been out too, and Brent Rooker never really got his season moving.
That matters. But it does not fully explain how a club that was 38-38 and right in the middle of a soft AL West race has slid all the way to 41-55 at the All-Star break.
The rest of the division has dealt with its own absences and kept going. The Mariners were without Cal Raleigh for a long stretch and Brendan Donovan last played on May 13th.
The Rangers missed Wyatt Langford for a while, lost Corey Seager to an IL stint, and Cody Bradford still has not thrown a pitch this season. The Astros were without Jeremy Peña for 5 weeks, Carlos Correa is out for the season, and Hunter Brown only recently returned to the rotation.
Those teams absorbed the hits and still managed to win about half their games.
The A’s, meanwhile, have not.
One of the easiest explanations for the collapse is that the pitching has been the problem. That part is true.
But it is only part of the story. The offense has been dragging the club down too, and the road numbers make that impossible to ignore.
After the A’s scored just 2 runs in 3 games in Chicago, they now own the worst OPS on the road in all of MLB.
Their road slash line sits at .223/.297/.347, good for a .644 OPS and dead last, 30th out of 30. Injuries have certainly played a role, but even the healthy versions of some of their biggest bats have not produced much away from West Sacramento.
Nick Kurtz, healthy for all but the last 2 games, hit .236/.364/.394 with a 114 wRC+ on the road in the first half. At home, that number jumped to a 180 wRC+.
Shea Langeliers, an All-Star and one of the club’s biggest first-half hitters, posted a .236/.303/.434 line and a 103 wRC+ on the road, compared with 135 wRC+ at home.
Tyler Soderstrom’s split was even starker: 162 wRC+ at home, but just .216/.290/.383 and an 84 wRC+ on the road.
Zack Gelof was much the same story, with a 148 wRC+ at home and a .222/.287/.374 line, 84 wRC+, away from West Sacramento.
So while the injuries are real, the A’s are also getting far less from those bats on the road than the excuse suggests. As a team, nobody in baseball has been worse offensively away from home.
There is also the bigger issue of how this season has unraveled. This is the second straight year the A’s have hit a wall, and once the slide started, Mark Kotsay and his staff have not found a way to stop it.
Last year, the club fell into a 1-20 spiral that blew the season apart before the break. This year looked different for a while.
The A’s were 38-38, tied for first place, and had a chance to make something real out of the first half. Instead, they have gone 3-17 and reached the break in another full-blown collapse, only a little better than 2025’s historic 21-game plunge.
A manager can’t control everything that happens over the course of a season. Baseball is too weird for that.
But two years in a row, the A’s have cratered badly and then failed to even steady themselves. They have not just lost games; they have gone through stretches where the bleeding never stops.
That matters because other teams have shown what a midseason reset can look like. In Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, managers were dismissed after disappointing starts, and in two of those cases the teams were back in the picture by the All-Star break.
The Red Sox are now 2 games under .500 and 0.5 game back of the third wild card. The Phillies hold the second wild card spot and are just 2 games behind the Braves in the NL East.
That does not mean those clubs are the same as the A’s. It does show that a change can matter when a team is spinning its wheels.
For the A’s, the picture is less comforting. The pitching has been poor.
The offense, once the home numbers are stripped away, has been “bottom of the barrel” too. And the leadership group has not shown it can guide the team through the kind of month-long disaster that wipes out everything that came before it.
That is the uncomfortable truth heading into the break. The A’s are not dealing with one problem.
They are dealing with three. And after 9 straight losses and 17 defeats in their last 20, there is no easy way to dress that up.
In Other News...
Athletics Are Running Out Of Answers During This Eight-Game Spiral
The Athletics keep searching for something to steady them during an eight-game slide, and the list of problems is starting to feel familiar. Injuries have thinned the roster, the offense has gone quiet and the pitching has not been able to cover for either issue, leaving too many nights where even a decent start is not enough to change the result.
Gage Jump was one of the few bright spots in a recent game, giving Oakland a chance with a solid outing, but the support behind him never really arrived. Henry Boltes recent struggles have only added to the frustration, while Luis Medina has continued to stand out in a bullpen that has needed stability, making him one of the more reliable arms the club can lean on as it heads toward the All-Star break. [Read more 🡒]
Athletics Still Have A Chance To Steal Day 2 Upside
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There are still a few interesting bats and arms hanging around for Oakland to weigh as the rounds move on, including Will Gasparino, Kyle Casteel and Genson Veras. The challenge is the same one plenty of teams face this time of year: the later the draft goes, the more college and amateur commitments start to matter, and the harder it gets to turn talent into actual signings. Even so, if the Athletics can thread that needle, there is still a chance to come out of the rest of the draft with more than just safe depth. [Read more 🡒]
Angels Just Let A Productive Infielder Slip Away
The Athletics used an open 40-man roster spot to claim infielder Donovan Walton off waivers from the Angels, adding a player who had quietly produced when given a chance this season. Walton logged 97 plate appearances in Anaheim and hit .319/.354/.505, a line that suggested he still had something to offer even as the Angels moved on from him.
For Oakland, the timing makes the pickup more interesting. The club has infield injuries to navigate, and with Nick Kurtz and Zack Gelof on the injured list, there is at least a path to immediate playing time, especially at third base. Walton gives the As another option in a spot where they need bodies and production, and now it will be up to them to see whether the Angels let one get away. [Read more 🡒]