Happy Wednesday A\u2019s fans!<\/p>\n
News flash: the Athletics return to Oakland and catapult to the top of the American League.<\/p>\n
April Fools! But the A\u2019s did get their first win of the season yesterday, defeating the Atlanta Braves 5-2.<\/p>\n
April 1st starts the first full-month of the regular-season. Perhaps it will be the beginning of a winning streak for the A\u2019s.<\/p>\n
While the A\u2019s are off to a 1-4 start, the good news is that they have 157 games remaining. There are plenty of games left for Mark Kotsay\u2019s team to improve and mold into a force capable of challenging for a playoff spot this season.<\/p>\n
In order to get back to winning ways, the A\u2019s offense must wake up and get back to performing like they were this spring in the Cactus League. So far, A\u2019s batters have been too aggressive, constantly chasing pitches outside the strike zone, resulting in strikeouts or weak ground outs at the expense of walks or long at-bats where the pitcher gets tired and makes a mistake.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Kotsay must figure out how to best leverage the relievers on the A\u2019s roster to protect any late leads. At the moment, the A\u2019s lack a true closer, so bullpen roles remain uncertain and it is hard for A\u2019s fans to trust any reliever entering the game.<\/p>\n
The A\u2019s should make the most of this season given the potential for a strike-shortened 2027 campaign. 31 years ago yesterday, the 1994-95 MLB strike ended. The work-stoppage began the prior year due to players\u2019 resistance to 0wners\u2019 push for a salary cap. It resulted in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and the truncation of the 1995 regular-season to 144 games. The strike, which affected baseball\u2019s revenue and popularity for years to come, did not result in the implementation of a salary cap. That remains a hotly debated issue and will likely be the focus of the next round of collective bargaining discussions between the MLB players union and team owners next offseason.<\/p>\n
A\u2019s right fielder Lawrence Butler had some fun with the Braves mascot before the game last night.<\/p>\n
This preseason ranking seems a bit pre-mature given the team\u2019s strikeout heavy slow start to the season at the plate. Yet, the A\u2019s have too many quality hitters to continue scuffling, so hopefully the runs start coming in bunches sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n
Hitting four home runs in the season\u2019s first five games, Shea Langeliers has cemented himself as one of the best offensive catchers in the league. How many home runs will he hit this season?<\/p>\n
If you have any April Fools jokes, feel free to put them in the comments. How do you think the Athletics will perform in April as the MLB season truly gets going? Can they parlay the momentum from their win yesterday into a winning month or will there be more losses to come in the next few weeks?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Happy Wednesday A\u2019s fans! News flash: the Athletics return to Oakland and catapult to the top of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2391],"tags":[537,79023,5,4,3226],"class_list":{"0":"post-659714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-athletics","8":"tag-athletics","9":"tag-athletics-discussion","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mlb-athletics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116337581988995298","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}