Boyle, Muller dazzle while A’s offense drags

The two youngsters combined for 10 strikeouts in 8 innings.

The Oakland Athletics are making a convincing pitch in April that they’re an actually competent baseball team. They may have lost today to the Washington Nationals, but they’ve still won 5 of their last 7 and have a chance to take their third series in a row tomorrow.

The A’s pitching staff in particular has been on a flaming hot streak, riding it into today’s game and holding their April ERA at a genuinely impressive 2.88 mark. That’s good for fifth-highest in the league this month!

Today, the effort was led by rookie starter Joe Boyle, whose command looked shaky in the first few innings and recalled concerns about his consistency. A lot of pitches were flying a foot above the zone and out of it but fortunately his stuff was more than enough to make up for the wildness. He ended up racking up 5 strikeouts and walking just one. Boyle’s only blemish was a CJ Abrams RBI triple down the right field foul line in the top of the 3rd. The outing brought his season ERA down from an ugly 8.22 to a much more tolerable 5.68. I’m going to go out on a limb and say Boyle might be here to stay.

Relieving Boyle in the 6th was an equally impressive, though not quite as tall, Kyle Muller. The sophomore southpaw entered the season on a mission to prove he’s a bonafide major league pitcher and he’s more than looked the part so far. After walking a below-average 10.5% of batter in 77 innings last season, he’s somehow returned this year with pinpoint control, cutting that walk rate in half to 5.4% and keeping batters completely off-balance with a 92-93 mph fastball.

Today, Muller threw 3 efficient innings, giving up just 2 hits and striking out 5 Nats hitters. His outing could’ve ended scoreless, but a 2-out flyball to centerfield was badly misjudged by Max Schuemann, who was making his starting lineup debut. After the 26-year-old rookie ran in to track the ball, it ended up falling a dozen feet behind him, gifting Luis Garcia, Jr. an RBI double. It’s unclear if he would’ve caught it but the erroneous route certainly didn’t help his chances. Nevertheless, it didn’t take away from the night Muller had and the run he’s been on. At some point, he’s gonna have to get a shot at the rotation with the dominance he’s showing and the 2.03 ERA he’s carrying.

Speaking of Schuemann, it was a big and well-earned day for him personally but a rough day on the field. Not only did he look raw in the outfield grass, but for someone with a .374 OBP and near-15% walk-rate in the minors, he didn’t look like he much control over the strike zone. His first at-bat ended in a rally-ending groundball double play and the next two in a couple of hopeless strikeouts. The good news that it should only get better from here. His first go-around might not be a lengthy one with Brent Rooker’s injury considered minor and Esteury Ruiz waiting for his recall but his track record of getting on base and playing all over the field should earn him several chances in the future.

Making up for Schuemann and the rest of the lineup’s cold night, Abraham Toro was all over the ball today, going 3-for-4 with a double and the only Oakland RBI of the game. Two were against Mackenzie Gore, who dominated the A’s tonight with 11 strikeouts over 5 scoreless innings. He even got Toro swinging on his third time up, but I’d give Toro the win in their matchup today. More and more, moving him up to the leadoff spot is turning into one of the best moves of the Mark Kotsay era.

Despite the big nights that Boyle, Muller, and Toro had, the A’s fell 3-1 to Washing and three games below .500, still ahead of where they were expected to be. They could cut into that deficit tomorrow with another win against the similarly rebuilding Nats as Alex Wood fights to hold off Muller from taking his rotation spot.