Happy birthday, America. I tried to get you a tie, but then the Marlins scored 7 extras runs. Tonight you will be treated to lots of fireworks, and I don’t mean from Jeffrey Springs pitching.
But enough about how wretchedly the A’s play at home — I have it on good authority (ok fine, Lawrence Butler) that it’s the ballpark’s fault and not the fault of the players who can’t match what opposing players can accomplish. Funny how it wasn’t “the ballpark’s fault” when the A’s were forced to play their home games in a venue that often had 90% of its seats empty and sometimes had sewage seeping into the clubhouse, yet the A’s often had one of the best home records in MLB.
Anyhoo, when I say “enough about how wretchedly the A’s play at home” I mean I’m going to continue talking about it for a while, because let’s face it: if the A’s could just have matched their 22-21 road record with similar “just mediocrity” at home, they would be sitting tied for 1st place right now.
Unfortunately, mediocrity is currently a pipe dream for the Sacrammerlin A’s. Here are some stats you might find interesting, and by interesting I mean they might make you want to put a firecracker up a defenseless kitten’s ass and walk away.
It Can’t Be True But It Is Fact #1: The A’s home ERA this season is now 6.25. This is partly due to the fact that their ERA in the top of the 1st inning this season is 8,423.65 (give or take).
It Can’t Be True But It Is Fact #2: A’s pitchers, at home, have served up 86 HRs in 45 games. That means that any home game in which the staff gives up 2 HRs is called “just another day at the office”.
It Can’t Be True But It Is Fact #3: Jeffrey Springs has thrown 54.1 IP at home this season and he has coughed up 16 HRs. This is an even more impressive pace of 1 HR every 3.4 innings. It only seems like it’s 3.4 HRs every 1 inning.
It Can’t Be True But It Is Fact #4: The A’s are 15-24 at Sutter Health Park, which is a robust .385 winning percentage.
It Can’t Be True But It Is Fact #5: In their 39 games at Sutter Health Park, the A’s have given up 8 runs or more in 14 of them. That’s about 36% of their games.
It Can’t Be True But It Is Fact #6: It’s not enough just to lead the majors in HRs allowed at home, the A’s also lead all of MLB in issuing walks at home: 199 walks, 10 more than their closest competitor (Houston) and more than twice as many as the Rays (98).
I would go on but the last thing I’d want to do is belabor the point. What I will say is this: until the A’s figure out a way to play halfway decently at home, rather than playing horrifically and then blaming the situation, the team cannot compete for anything because they play half their games at home. Simple math tells you that you can’t win enough games if you give up “6 and a quarter runs” half the time and can’t outscore the other team even 40% of the time in half your games.
To make that work the A’s would have to be true road warriors, dominating and winning about 2/3 of the time. In reality the A’s are hitting, as a team, .229/.304/.359 on the road and that’s not likely to win you 2/3 of your games.
So it’s not even a matter of the A’s now being too buried to contend. They are 6 games under .500, which means if they win 6 in a row — and any team can in a week where they suddenly get hot — they would be at .500 in a division and league where .500 gives you as good odds as anyone to make the post-season.
The A’s record, and the standings, are not the problem. The complete and utter inability to pitch or play well at home is the back breaker. And it shows no signs of slowing down on what is currently a 1-3 homestand in which the A’s have served up another 31 runs — 9 or more runs in 3 of the 4 games.
Enjoy tonight’s fireworks show! And then try to enjoy the post-game festivities as well.
