Oakland Athletics: Recap and Analysis of Series vs. Royals, Indians

Ho-hum, more great pitching and so-so hitting led to another 3-3 week for the perpetually .500 A's.

Recap

The A's opened up the series with the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday with a 4-1 loss. Tyson Ross started and allowed a single run through 6.2 innings, while Brian Fuentes, pitching for the third-straight day, was not sharp and allowed three runs in the ninth to give the Indians the win.

The A's bounced back in the second game of the series with a 3-1 win. Trevor Cahill pitched seven strong innings and was backed by a pair of David DeJesus home runs.

The next day's rubber match went to the Indians, and it took 12 innings for the Indians to win 4-3.

The A's began their next series with the Kansas City Royals with a gritty 3-2 win. Gio Gonzalez gutted out seven innings despite lacking control, and the A's plated three runs in the fifth inning to pick up the victory.

Game 2 went the way of the Royals, a walk-off sac fly in the ninth negating a three-run homer by the A's Cliff Pennington to knot the game at three apiece in the eighth.

The finale went to the A's, 5-2. Tyson Ross picked up his first win as a starter, as Kevin Kouzmanoff and Kurt Suzuki went deep for the A's.

Lets get to sounding like a broken record.

Offense

An absence of any sort of semblance of hitting is keeping this team from being the best in baseball.

Each player seemed to have a good day at some point over the week. David DeJesus hit his first two homers as an A. Daric Barton, Mark Ellis and Kevin Kouzmanoff had multi-hit games Sunday, and all three look to push the momentum towards righting their poor offensive season.

Conor Jackson continued to be a very good bench contributor, as he hit 6-for-17 in four games last week.

Starting Pitching

Consistent, still.

Every starter had a minimum of six innings pitched; only one allowed more than two earned runs. The "worst" start was a complete game loss by Brandon McCarthy in which he allowed four runs over 8.1 innings.

Ross has pitched quite admirably in Dallas Braden's absence, pitching 12.2 innings and allowing only three runs in those two appearances last week.

Relief Pitching

The relievers took two of the three losses on the week, but both can be attributed to circumstances out of their control. Grant Balfour filled in and got the save in Wednesday's win.

Michael Wuertz appears to be regaining his 2009 form, as he appeared in three games allowing no hits and striking out three in 3.1 innings.

Defense

The A's defense is finally starting to come around. The only errors committed in the month of May have been by starting pitchers. Over the past six games, the lone error was an overthrow of first by Tyson Ross.

David DeJesus made a very athletic catch near the wall in Kansas City and Ross made the play of the year, catching a throw and diving to tag Jeff Francoeur as he was heading for third (if you haven't seen it take a look here).

Coaching

Two big gaffes lead to a pair of losses this week.

The first was in Tueday's loss to the Indians, as Brian Fuentes was brought into a tie game after pitching the two previous days. Granted, the save was no longer in place, but regardless, the A's had a host of other arms available and Fuentes was not pulled quickly enough to save the game.

Second and even more frustrating is the A's' use of no-doubles defense late in the game. In the 4-3 12-inning loss on Thursday, two bloop hits that likely would have been caught under normal circumstances led to the A's' demise.

The A's pitching doesn't give up many extra-base hits, and because of their strength, bloop singles are much more likely with a no-doubles defense. I understand the reason behind using it, but it has clearly done more harm than good to the A's so far this season.

Can the A's climb more than a game above .500? They'll give it their best shot this week against the Texas Rangers in Arlington and the Chicago White Sox back at good old Overstock.com Coliseum.