Oakland Athletics: Week Recap, Angels and Rangers Series Analysis

I figured I'd wait until the A's finished their strangely timed Monday day game before writing this.

They were inconsistent at best over this last week. Shocking from the A's so far this year. They finished their games with the Angels and Rangers with a fortuitous 4-3 record, which was mostly the product of inconsistent offense and defense. Again, shocking, but try to contain yourselves.

Lets go game by game through the last week.

The series in Anaheim began with a whimper as Jered Weaver recorded his sixth win of the year in a 5-0 effort. The A's managed seven hits but were unable to push across anything in the series opener.

Game 2 boasted little change, though the A's did score three runs. Brandon McCarthy was lit up by the Angels, yielding 14 hits and seven runs through 5.1 innings. The Angels went on to win the game 8-3.

The finale was presided over by the A's Tyson Ross, who breezed through seven brilliant innings and was on his way to 1-0 victory until an unfortunate series of events saw the Angels tie the game in the bottom of the ninth. Lady luck smiled upon the A's in the 10th as Cliff Pennington was gifted a triple by Vernon Wells and scored on a Conor Jackson chopper. Brad Ziegler got three quick ground outs for his first save of the season and allowed the A's to escape Los Angeles, ahem, Anaheim with a victory.

After a much needed off day, the A's began a four-game series with the Texas Rangers. Game 1 went to the A's as Trevor Cahill confounded the Rangers over seven innings. A few clutch RBI hits brought the A's a 3-1 win in the opener.

Saturday's day game did not got as well for the A's. Brett Anderson was lit up for seven runs and three home runs in a 11-2 loss.  Solo homers by Kurt Suzuki and Josh Willingham were the only offense the A's could muster.

Sunday went to the A's, who are now 5-0 on Sundays this year. Gio Gonzalez pitched a solid 6.2 innings and the A's scored six in the first three innings en route to a 7-2 win.

Monday's awkwardly timed 12:30 start brought less than 10,000 to the newly named Overstock.com coliseum. Those who did attend were treated to a thrilling game. Both teams fought back and forth with the Rangers taking a 4-3 lead into the eighth inning. All four of the Rangers' runs were unearned, courtesy of a pair of Brandon McCarthy throwing errors.  Josh Willingham tied the game in the bottom of the eighth with a solo home run off of Arthur Rhodes. The A's had two on and one out in the ninth but failed to score. Grant Balfour wobbled mightily through the top the tenth, walking the bases loaded before striking out Yorvit Torrealba to end the inning. The bottom of the 10th lasted only a single pitch as Hideki Matsui sent the first pitch he saw into the right field stands to give the A's a 5-4 win and 3-1 series win.

Certainly the right way to finish off a week of baseball, or start one, if you want to look at it that way. The A's started the week off poorly with back-to-back losses to the Angels, but recovered nicely to win four of their last five games.

There is more underneath their 4-3 record, so let us delve deeper. 

Offense

Still inconsistent, duh. The A's scored only five runs against the Angels. They scored three, two, seven and five respectively against the Rangers. Only in two of seven games did the A's score four or more runs and were victorious in both. Kurt Suzuki is beginning to heat up following the birth of daughter Malia with two home runs and five RBI over his past four games. Mark Ellis continues to struggle, as his average sits below .200. The A's power has enjoyed a surge with five home runs in their last three games.

Defense

It's still an issue. Over the last week the A's committed five errors resulting in nine unearned runs. An unearned run allowed the Angels to tie the game in the ninth on Wednesday, and four unearned runs on Monday forced the A's to take the Rangers into extra innings. Even if the A's win the games, errors lead to extra pitches for pitchers and more strain on the offense to make up for defensive shortcomings. Andy LaRoche played the last two games at third base with Kevin Kouzmanoff sitting, partly due to his shoddy defense thus far.

Starting Pitching

This was not the best week for A's starters. Gio Gonzalez was out-pitched by Jered Weaver, Brandon McCarthy was bombed by the Angels and Brett Anderson lacked control against the Rangers. Tyson Ross was a pleasant surprise after his first unsuccessful start. Cahill, Gonzalez and McCarthy pitched effectively in their starts against the Rangers. The starters maintain their major league best ERA.

Relief Pitching

It was a wild week for the relievers. Fuentes blew a save and got a win, he later saved Friday's game against the Rangers. Relievers combined for four shutout innings in Monday's victory, as Grant Balfour got his second win of the season. The A's relief ERA is now among the top ten in baseball, currently below 2.70.

Coaching

Management didn't have any significant contributions during the week. Other than setting the lineups, their were no mind-boggling mistakes or brilliant substitutions. Let's hope that remains the same in the upcoming week.

The A's are now 2-0 in May and have a couple of big series against the surprising Cleveland Indians and Kansas City Royals this week.