The Oakland Athletics had a mediocre, inconsistent first month of the season. The team hovered around .500 all April, sinking as low as three games below and rising as high as one game above before finishing the month at 13-14.
Of course, baseball fans know April represented only 17 percent of the season; so people should avoid overanalyzing individual or team statistics. Still, such stats can highlight early-season trends that could develop into yearlong problems.
The A”s certainly created potential long-term problems during April.
Poor defense cost the A”s several games, a surprising early-season development.
Oakland”s normally sure-handed starting infielders each made errors during April. The awful defense play of corner infielders Daric Barton and Kevin Kouzmanoff, who both had more than four errors in April, forced manager Bob Geren to bench them on a couple of occasions.
The error-bug bit nearly every A”s player in April, as the team led the American League in errors at month”s end. And in the majors, baserunners reaching on errors usually find a way to score.
Even more costly for Oakland has been the team”s offense, which was the second-least productive in the AL.
No regular player batted better than .300 for the month. Offseason acquisitions David DeJesus, Hideki Matsui and Josh Willingham all got off to slow starts, each batting worse than .250, which wouldn”t have been too bad if returners like Barton, Kouzmanoff and Mark Ellis hadn”t spent the month flirting with the Mendoza Line.
Those players need to find their groove soon if the A”s are going to stop losing winnable games. The offense clearly cost the A”s in most of their losses. Oakland never scored more than three runs in any nine-inning loss (averaging 1.45 runs with four shutouts).
The fact A”s starting pitchers performed well in a majority of those losses probably makes those outcomes harder to stomach.
A”s pitching was dominant in April, leading the AL in ERA (a somewhat misleading stat because the high number of errors led to many unearned runs, which hurt the team just the same). Still, the A”s pitching staff again proved it was one of baseball”s best.
Oakland”s hurlers pitched well enough to earn more than 13 wins in April. Their teammates simply played too inconsistently to give the pitchers (and the team) more wins.
April could have been more disheartening without the great pitching; it also could have been more impressive with better offense and defense. Luckily and/or unfortunately, it was neither.
Finishing April one game below .500 isn”t too bad because most teams haven”t begun to find their identity, including the A”s AL West foes.
Fans shouldn”t get too worked up about their team”s first month of the season, but they also shouldn”t ignore it. To paraphrase a baseball adage, a win in April is just as important as a win in September.
The same holds true for losses. When a team is 150 games into its season and trailing in the division by two or three games in the loss column, difficult or needless early-season defeats begin to weigh more heavily.
As the season starts to sunset in September, April losses can make the difference between players and coaches spending October on the field or on the golf course (or in Geren”s case, the unemployment line).
Though April was disappointing, Oakland played well enough to stay close to the division leaders. The A”s have plenty of time to make the necessary corrections, with 130 games remaining after today.
Like every other team in baseball, the A”s will have winning months and losing months. With their great pitching, the question will be whether their offense and defense will improve enough to allow the winning months to outnumber the losing ones.
As the long season lingers on, A”s players will probably forget much of what happened in April. And rightfully so, they”re professionals and should know how to move on.
Nevertheless, the fact remains April should have been a winning month for Oakland. The players and coaches must learn from the lessons created by April mistakes, otherwise the team and fan base with playoff aspirations soon won”t be dreaming any more.
Jeremy Walsh is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. He can be reached at 263-5636 ext. 37 or jwalsh@record-bee.com.
