Lowrie provides steadying influence team will need in postseason
September baseball. A likely postseason opponent in town. A huge crowd, urging on its team at the key moment — top of the eighth, two on, two out, tying run at the plate.
And at the end of the game, the A’s, clad in gleaming home whites and celebrating on the emerald green grass, were 6-3 winners over the mighty New York Yankees. It was the 83rd victory of the season, the 11th in the current 18-game stretch without a day off.
This is what it feels like to head toward the postseason. And for most of the players on this team, this is a completely new sensation. But not for Jed Lowrie. “He’s a resource, especially for these younger guys,” manager Bob Melvin said. “I can’t say enough about not only what he’s meant to this
team, but also his production the past two years. The best two years of his career.”
Lowrie, in his 11th season, continued his phenomenal season on Monday with two hits, a run scored and another RBI, increasing his careerbest total to 86. He helped spark the first-inning output, and his RBI single in the fourth cushioned the A’s lead.
A crowd of 40,456 helped bring electricity to the Coliseum. The easy cliche is “playoff atmosphere.” Lowrie knows enough to tap the brakes.
“It’s certainly going to be a fun series,” Lowrie said, “but it’s still early September. We need to keep things in perspective. It’s a big series against a team we’re trying to chase, but don’t need to be all in.”
Meaning it’s not life or death. Not yet, with 23 games still to play. There are precious few players inside the A’s clubhouse that have any type of playoff perspective. Lowrie not only has it, having made the postseason five times in his career, he has playoff experience specific to the A’s.
Lowrie, who also has played for Boston and Houston, was a part of the A’s last postseason era, in both 2013 and 2014. He was on the team that won the division and lost to Detroit in 2013 and on the team that settled for the wild card in 2014 after losing the division lead. That team then endured a bitter loss to Kansas City.
Lowrie sees a lot of simi- larities between this version of the A’s and those earlier teams.
“I think the lineup construction was about the same,” he said. “We had a very deep team, and we didn’t have to rely on two or three guys every night to come through with big hits.
“If you look at our lineup, one through nine and even the guys coming off the bench, this is probably the deepest lineup I’ve been a part of.”
In 2013, Lowrie joined a team that had been in the Division Series the year before. He left as part of the tear-down of that era of A’s baseball. In that 2014 season, the A’s were a trendy pick to win the World Series.
This team, in contrast, has been a bolt out of the blue, without any expectations and well ahead of schedule. Lowrie, 34, knows that one of his roles is to provide a steadying influence.
“I’m not actively preaching,” he said, “but I certainly can provide some insight into situations these guys haven’t had a chance to experience yet.”
The biggest message he has is this: Understand the situation (playoffs!), but then calm down, push aside the awe and just go to work. Don’t try to do too much. Don’t let the moment get too big.
“Recognize the situation,” he said. “Then take a deep breath and step back from it and find out who you are. The hardest thing is finding out who you are in this game and being that person every single But that’s how you succeed in high-pressure situations — by being that person.”
Melvin sees Lowrie’s influence every day, around the batting cage, in conversation with other players.
“He’s a smart guy who’s on top of everything in terms of strengths and weakness,” Melvin said. “He knows what the pitchers are going to try to do to him. He’s a resource to tell the younger guys, ‘This is how you have to handle things.’ ”
Lowrie thinks that the last time the A’s faced the Yankees, at Yankee Stadium in early May, and won just one of three but played New York tough, was when this team started to believe.
“That was probably the start of when some of these guys realized we had the ability to compete with the best teams in the league,” he said. “That was the first step to where we are now.”
Where the A’s are now is a team with the fourth-best record in baseball. A team headed to the postseason. A team that clearly believes — even expects — to beat any opponent.
But now we’re heading into the stretch. Will the young A’s get tight? Will the moment get too big?
“There’s only one way to find out,” said Lowrie, a man who will make it his job to keep things in perspective.