Tuesday’s Game Just The Latest Example Where Poor Strategy And Poor Fundamentals Meet

As I’ve written recently, both the manager/coaches and the players hold responsibility for the A’s deep struggles since early May. This is not exactly ground-breaking analysis on its own. The root question is why the struggles have been so severe, and Tuesday night’s game offered a lesson all in one game.

I was at the “Big A” for the 2-1 10 inning loss, my first game there since Doug Jennings provided the heroics in 1988 with a game winning bases clearing double in the 9th. Last night another Rule 5 pick shone, as Mitch Spence gave the A’s an excellent start, and despite Jose Soriano’s dominance (7 IP, 2 hits, 12 K) the A’s were in position to win the game.

Here’s what went wrong, illustrating how a team full of talent and early hope can go through a stretch of winning just 4 times in 27 games.

But...But...3rd Time Through The Order!

Pulling Spence after 5 innings and 75 pitches was the first managerial gaffe of the evening. Undoubtedly Mark Kotsay and crew were swayed by the robotic and generic “don’t let him face the order a third time” worry that has some general statistical basis if you look at all games in aggregate but means little with regard to that pitcher that day that context.

The context is that Spence was not only pitching great (5 shutout innings) but he was not showing any signs of running out of gas. The 5th was a solid inning in which Spence’s stuff and results were good.

So even though Spence historically struggles the 3rd time through the order and hasn’t built his pitch count up to throw 100 pitches, the opportunity was there to go “batter to batter” and see if Spence could give you upwards of 6 IP.

Given the A’s bullpen woes, the value of getting a 6th inning from your SP is huge. But instead of Michael Kelly working the 7th and 8th he worked the 6th and 7th, and what do you know? The Angels tied the game in the 8th before Mason Miller could be utilized.

Bunting Woes

The A’s inability to score 3 different runners who landed at 2nd with 0 outs is why they lost the game. Add on to the 1-0 lead and Miller has a save chance in the 9th; score the “ghost runner” in the 10th and it’s Miller Time.

Twice the A’s put on the sacrifice bunt trying to move the runner to 3rd and both times it was a terrible managerial decision. First off, it’s rarely the right move to bunt with a runner at 2nd and 0 outs if only because it decreases the chance of a crooked number.

You do it only when you know you need exactly one run and you have a batter who is both poor at hitting and good at bunting. And that brings us to fundamentals.

The A’s are notoriously terrible at the art of laying down a bunt. This tells you three things: the A’s need to do a better job of teaching how to bunt, the players need to commit to learning how to bunt, and perhaps most of all the manager needs to stop asking his players to bunt until they demonstrate they know how to do it.

What putting on a sacrifice bunt means for the A’s in most cases is “2 foul bunt attempts and then a strikeout because now it’s 0-2 or 1-2”. Or just a failed bunt. Each happened once last night, as Max Muncy struck out after 2 failed bunt attempts and Denzel Clarke popped up a bunt on which Max Schuemann wound up getting thrown out at 3B.

It’s a little hard to describe just in words, but I’ll tell you why the A’s are so bad at bunting. They commonly make the same mistake which is to “let the ball get in deep,” something that works well for batting but poorly for bunting.

Waiting for the ball to get all the way to the bat is a recipe for popping the bunt up. What effective bunters do is just as a pitch arrives to the bat they gently “push the ball” with the bat, the bunting version of a swing.

You could think of it this way: good bunters would be rung up on a check swing call while A’s bunters would be ruled to have checked their swing (maybe not technically but you get the idea). There needs to be the softer bunting version of the bat going to the ball, not the ball going to be the bat.

There is a world where you could make a case for each bunt call even though it was the wrong call. Muncy was utterly overmatched all night by Soriano, constantly swinging a half a foot over the same pitch again and again. Clarke combines struggling hitting and high whiff rates with the chance to beat out any bunt he gets down. And certainly the way Soriano was pitching just adding one run seemed like a worthy goal.

But then the A’s need to be able to execute and their consistent deficiency in executing is a big part of why they are a 4-27 team of late. They also would have won had they gone all of 1 for 8 with RISP, but of course they went 0 for 8 — and the Angels walked it off on a single with a RISP.

More Tactical Fail

Just as he robotically yanked Spence after 18 batters, Kotsay’s final decision was his personal favorite obsession: with the winning run at 3B and 2 outs he ordered an intentional walk to Zach Neto and instead chose to have Hogan Harris face the left-handed batting Nolan Schanuel.

This was bad a decision as it was predictable that the A’s would look no further than what hand the pitcher and the batters used. But in this case the percentages swung strongly to the Angels’ favor for not one, not two, but three different reasons:

1. While most LHPs fare much better against LH batters, in his career to date Harris has been an exception. LH batters hit .274./391/.432 (.364 wOBA) while RH batters hit .247/.324/.412 (.320 wOBA).

2. While Neto and Schanuel have nearly identical batting averages so far this season, Schanuel not only carries the better career BA but his hitting profile is that of a “high average hitter” more so than Neto. In other words, expect Schanuel to have the better career BA of the two, and this was a situation where OBP and SLG were irrelevant — a single wins it, period, and a walk does not.

3. Playing the percentages has to factor in more than just the pitch or batter in front of you. Here’s the choice Kotsay actually faced:

Pitching to Neto means if he gets a hit you lose, if he gets out the inning is over, and if he walks the inning continues with runners at 1B and 3B.

Pitching to Schanuel means if he gets a hit you lose, if he gets out the inning is over, and if he walks the inning continues with the bases loaded and Mike Trout batting in a situation where if he reaches base you lose. Trout’s career OBP is .408.

So with a LHP on the mound whose career has seen him be more effective against RH batters, an on deck hitter who is the higher BA hitter of the two immediate options, and Trout in the hole batting only if the bases are loaded, you pitch to Neto every time.

Unless you don’t understand percentages, probabilities, and strategy.

All this and the A’s still might have survived it had they cheated enough in the outfield. Schanuel is primarily a singles hitter and was batting in the rare situation where a single and a double are literally of the exact same value.

If ever there was a time to play your outfield way in it was this spot. I don’t know if that humpback liner was catchable no matter what, but I do know that if a ball is catchable even with a 5% probability I’m not counting Denzel Clarke out. Place him 2 steps in daring Schanuel to hit it over his head and maybe he darts in and makes a diving catch to save the game. As it was, no contest.

Standing Around

Last night the A’s struggled to score — for most of the night they struggled just to reach base. But they did have some base runners and they made the least of them.

After failing to lay down a successful bunt, Clarke did find himself at 1B with 1 out. Clarke is by far the A’s fastest runner and is already 3 for 3 in his stolen base attempts. He never moved off 1B.

In the 9th inning against closer Kenley Jansen, Tyler Soderstrom singled to lead off. The issue here isn’t that Soderstrom is a speed demon, although he is 2 for 2 in his stolen base attempts this season and 3 for 3 in his career.

The issue is that Jansen famously can’t hold on base runners, making Osvaldo Bido and Jeffrey Springs look good at it and that’s hard to do. Soderstrom stayed anchor at 1B the entire inning as 3 batters came and went.

You wonder how a team with quite a bit of talent on it can play .129 ball for over a month? Sure the starting pitching has been rough and the bullpen worse. And the inexplicable level of struggle with RISP hasn’t helped a bit.

But it’s more than that. It’s the constant lack of smart strategy and lack of fundamentals that gnaw away at games time and time again. I just keep watching, rooting, hoping and waiting for it to change.