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The Oakland Athletics will return home to open a series with the Texas Rangers on Monday night — and they’re probably pretty happy to get off the road.
After dropping Sunday’s game with the Seattle Mariners 6-1 (and losing two out of three over the weekend), the A’s finished a road trip through New York, Cleveland and Seattle with a 3-7 record. That’s not a great trip, especially considering it began with a series victory against the New York Yankees.
Still, Oakland returns home with some positives — pitcher Jarrod Parker pitched into the seventh inning on Saturday, delivering a quality start and picking up his second victory of the season.
Additionally, it’s important to remember that the A’s are currently playing with a depleted roster — outfielders Coco Crisp, Chris Young and Josh Reddick are all on the disabled list, while Yoenis Cespedes has scuffled with the bat lately, perhaps feeling the weight of their absence on his shoulders.
At any rate, things could be much worse for the A’s — and, in fact, they’re not too far off the pace of their 2012 season. Through 39 games this season, they’re 19-20. At this point last year, they were 20-19, so they’re consistent in that regard.
The A’s need to weather the storm caused by this spurt of injuries. If they can tread water until the reserves come back, there’s a chance they could start getting back to full strength. If that happens, the team could always get on the kind of roll that helped propel them towards the playoffs in 2012.
Of course, the pitching has to do its job too; hopefully, last night’s start is the turning point Parker’s season needed.
Note regarding the outfield situation: A’s writers say that there’s a pretty good chance that Crisp and Young could come back by Wednesday’s game against Texas. If that happens, the A’s offense can get a bit closer to full strength — if all goes well, of course.
Adrian Garro is an Oakland Athletics writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter and/or add him to your network on Google.
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