Oakland Athletics: 5 Surprising Facts about the Hottest Team in Baseball

The Oakland Athletics have the best record in baseball since June 16th, winning 26 of their last 33 games. They now sit 17 games over .500 and are within reach of the Wild Card.

With the lowest payroll in baseball, the Oakland Athletics are having a surprising, even thrilling season.  But what actually makes this team so surprising, and so good?

After beginning the season 10-25 against Al West opponents, the A’s are now within reach of the Wild Card. At their furthest back on June 14th, the team was 10 games behind Seattle in the race. But with their incredible comeback wins in the last two nights against the Rangers, they have now climbed within 1.5 games of the Wild Card. They have gone 10-0-1 in their last eleven series and have not lost back to back games in well over a month.

2018 Oakland Athletics Fact #1: They Don’t Lose (Literally, Not Once) When Leading After the 7th or 8th Inning

When the Oakland Athletics are up late in the game, they hold on — every single time. They are undefeated when leading after the 7th inning at 40-0.

This fact no doubt is owed largely to the A’s bullpen, which has a 75% save percentage (3rd best in the AL). In particular, the duo of rookie pitcher Lou Trivino and All-Star closer Blake Treinen have together bolstered the bullpen to one of the league’s best. Trivino, promoted to the bigs on April 7th, has 7 wins, the second-most wins in relief in the American League, and an ERA of 1.36. Blake Treinen, acquired from the Nationals in 2017,  has a (tied-for) AL 3rd-best 26 saves on the season and a 1.06 ERA.

With the recent addition of relief pitcher Jeurys Familia from the Mets and rumors that the A’s are potentially looking to add an additional relief pitcher to the roster by the trade deadline, the A’s have seemingly decided to strengthen their bullpen rather than attempt to acquire a costly starter.

A’s fans are likely overjoyed to see these moves as Oakland’s commitment to this group of players and what they can do, as they proceed as buyers, not sellers as the deadline approaches.

2018 Oakland Athletics Fact #2: Call Them the Comeback Kids

The Oakland Athletics have scored an MLB-high of 185 runs in the seventh through ninth innings, including the most runs scored in the eighth (76) and the most runs in the ninth (53). They average a league-high 1.8 runs in the 7th inning or later.

As of Tuesday, A’s beat writer Susan Slusser reports, the team had earned 16 of their last 25 wins in comeback games, and in a miraculous 11 of the games, they scored the winning run in the eighth inning or later. Last night’s 9th inning win boosts this number to 12.

Two back-to-back comeback wins against the Texas Rangers were an incredible testament of this team’s perseverance . Down 10-2 to start the 7th on Tuesday, the A’s roared back in a series of improbable plays and opposing pitching breakdowns to tie the game in the ninth with a Stephen Piscotty solo home run. Khris Davis would hit the game winning 3-run blast to give the A’s a 13-10 win.

In case you missed it: that’s a whopping 11-run comeback after the 7th inning, the most ever by an A’s team this late in the game since they have been in Oakland (the last time was in 1939). Last night Davis would repeat his performance with a ninth inning blast to lift the A’s from a 5-4 game (they were down 5-1 to start the seventh) to another comeback win.

This is a team that simply will not let any deficit damper their will to win.

2018 Oakland Athletics Fact #3: They Lead the Majors in Home Runs and Slugging on the Road

The Oakland Athletics score an average of 5.72 runs per game on the road, that is tied for most in MLB with the Houston Astros. Compare that to their 3.7ish run average at home, and one can see that this team really thrives in opponent’s parks.

They also surprisingly lead the league in home runs on the road by a mile, with 95 so far. On June 23rd, Oakland set a new MLB record by hitting a home run in their 25th consecutive road game. The team also leads the majors in RBI’s (307) and in team slugging percentage (.472) in away games.

This is a team that many clubs will continue to fear facing in their own home ballparks.

2018 Oakland Athletics Fact #5: Individual Players Taking Turns Getting Hot

With his solo game-tying home run in the 9th inning yesterday against Texas, Stephen Piscotty continues to make a solid bid for AL player of the month with 7 homers in his last 14 games and a batting average of .303 in June and .297 in July, with a slugging of .689 this month so far.

Piscotty seems to have picked up where Lowrie left off, who before yesterday’s excellent game had gone 0-19 since being elected to the All-Star game due to injury. Despite the slump, Lowrie hit his 17th home run of the season yesterday, a career-high (In July no less) for the 34 year-old infielder. Lowrie and Piscotty have been two of the main factors in Oakland’s late-inning rallies with clutch plate appearances in most of the A’s comeback wins.

Matt Chapman is not only the best AL defensive third baseman according to July 15th’s SABR Defensive Index Rankings, with a WAR of 5.0, he is also batting .381 since the All-Star break. Yesterday he hit the hardest hit A’s homer since Statcast started recording in 2015.

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Khris Davis hit his sixth homer in four days in yesterday’s win, and has 27 home runs and 77 RBI’s on the year. He has learned to produce even when his home-run hitting is slumping, and despite the HR slump (which appears to be over), sits fifth in home runs and third in RBI’s in the American League. He has the most home runs of any active MLB player since 2016.

Once hard-hitting Matt Olson gets hot again, and he will, the A’s will be even more of an offensive force to be reckoned with.

This is all to say that the A’s are notorious for having a different hero on any given night (did you see Jonathan Lucroy’s grand slam Monday night?) and this is largely what makes them so unpredictable, and so dangerous.

They may not look the prettiest on paper, but the 2018 Oakland Athletics have certainly done all the things they’ve needed to in order to contend so far. Hopefully, they can continue on into the postseason!