In Yankees series, more than a measuring stick
Call it Bob Melvin’s Revenge. The Yankees come to Oakland on Monday for a crucial three-game series, likely a preview of the AL wild card game Oct. 3, and the Athletics manager has a score to settle.
The Yankees signed Melvin as a free-agent catcher in 1994, then after nine games shipped him off to the White Sox.
“Pretty spectacular nine games,” Melvin said after Sunday’s 8-2 win over the Mariners. “I know my first at-bat as a Yankee, in Yankee Stadium, was a three-run homer. That’s where the highlights stopped. It was fun for at least an at-bat.”
This week Melvin can get a measure of revenge
against the team that helped usher him out the door as a major leaguer. Hey, he hit .286 in nine games and they sacked him! And he’ll get his chance. His maneuvering has become an important part of the A’s run — 48-20 over the last 68 games.
Creativity, especially when it comes to the pitching staff — that’s what the A’s are going to need coming down the stretch, and that’s where Melvin comes in.
Saturday, Melvin went with a bullpen game, starting a relief pitcher. That didn’t work out so well, an 8-7 loss to the Mariners, but it won’t be the last time this season Melvin will be asked to creatively mix and match.
Melvin won’t go it alone. Those creative decisions are made in collaboration with management, Billy Beane & Company.
Starter Edwin Jackson bailed out the A’s on Sunday, surviving a shaky start to go six innings, which is 60 in A’s-starter innings. Going into the game, A’s starters had an 11-game stretch where they were 2-5 with a 6.17 ERA, causing Melvin and Beane to hit the creativity button Saturday night, not only starting a relief pitcher but using nine (nine!) pitchers.
The team brain trust’s creativity will be tested and challenged, probably the rest of the season and, baseball gods willing, into the playoffs.
Play it by ear, that’s the A’s master strategy. With their bullpen more reliable than their starters, the A’s have left open the possibility of more “bullpenning,” and might put more emphasis on “third time around,” the concept of yanking the starter before the third time through the opposing lineup.
The Yankees certainly respect Melvin’s managing. When they were looking for a manager last winter, they asked the A’s for permission to interview Melvin. Permission denied. So New York hired a rookie manager, Aaron Boone, who is a bit more fiery than Melvin, outwardly at least.
Boone sat out Sunday’s Yankees’ loss, suspended for a game after making contact with an ump in a theatrical and heated beef over a called strike.
The Yankees come to town with a familiar face in right field. They recently picked up Andrew McCutchen from the Giants. McCutchen seemed to welcome the move, quickly shaving off his goatee and mustache per Yankees grooming rules, a throwback to George Steinbrenner and 1960s anti-hippieism.
McCutchen said becoming a Yankee was “surreal,” which apparently was a tribute to Yankees’ tradition, and not a chopped-liver-type shot at the Giants.
The Yankees will bring a lot of fans with them. Monday’s Coliseum crowd should be 30,000-plus. What that means in terms of home-field advantage is hard to say.
For sure the house will be lively, and players appreciate that energy. But with the A’s, even though Matt Chapman recently asked for more A’s fans to come out to the old ballyard, it’s hard to say what crowds mean to this team’s performance.
It’s at least possible that with the ragtag identity the A’s embrace, the often small Coliseum crowds feed into their usagainst-the-world mentality.
One thing seems evident: The A’s see themselves as a playoff team, and right now they have a strong hold on that No. 2 wild card spot, but I believe they have a grander vision, what some who haven’t followed the team this year might consider a delusion.
With Sunday’s win, the A’s kept pace with the first-place Astros, who won Sunday night; the A’s remain 2½ games back in their bid to win the AL West.
If you’re dreaming, why not dream big? Much better to win the division and avoid that wild card play-in game. In a fivegame series, you’ve got a chance to more fully demonstrate that A’s magic that has turned a low-payroll, pitching-challenged team into a force.
But even a wild-card bid is far from guaranteed for the A’s, so this upcoming three-game Bob Melvin’s Revenge series is crucial. Beane’s revenge, too, against the team that tried to spirit away his manager.