Never thought a team with a win percentage over .500 could feel so 'meh'.
Nobody's doing too poorly on the A's right now, which is nice, but...nobody's doing terribly well, either. Jed Lowrie, once again, leads in average, and Khris Davis, once again, leads in homers, but...this isn't an especially varied lineup we have here. People are either playing great defensive ball and only hitting .250, or hitting like hell and sucking at defense. There aren't a ton of multi-dimensional players here, save maybe for Lowrie.
The only thing the A's have going for them is improvement at this point. Stephen Piscotty is finally hitting around .250, after skirting .200 for a while, Mark Canha has blossomed into a durable everyday outfielder, and Matt Olsen is reminding everyone that he can hit for power as well as playing great 1st base. Yes, the poster child of this A's team, Matt Chapman, is currently injured, but the team is still alright enough without him, as they've thrown Franklin Barreto into the mix to cover for him.
Might I also add that the pitching rotation has been inexplicably fantastic given the glut of injuries to established players. The amount of talent they've been piping in from odd places, like Frankie Montas from the depths of injuries, and Edwin Jackson, from the Nationals, is worthy of attention, especially considering that those two would never have been predicted to be doing WELL for a team at the start of this season. Jackson was lights-out in his debut, and has been helping the A's to a pretty nice week or so.
I'm not sure if this nice week the A's have had will lead to a long-standing coup in a fairly packed AL West, but it's sure fun to theorize how a fourth-place team like the A's could pull one off.
Coming Tomorrow- A guy named after a body part. Only the finest in San Diego.
As a loyal A's fan... I can say that A's are the textbook definition of "meh". Their youth movement definitely has potential... and Davis seems to be on pace to reach 40 home runs again (although he hasn't hit one in quite some time)... but they're pretty hard to get pumped up for. I still enjoy attending games and cheering them on. But the whole "swing for the fences" philosophy is getting old. I wanna see them hit for average, get on base, and drive each other in. Lowrie seems to be the only one capable of doing that.
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