Bottom of order hitting a storm
CLEVELAND — Perhaps the most unexpected development in Oakland’s May surge is where a lot of the production is coming from.
The bottom of the order is picking up the pace — especially the No. 9 spot, where the A’s catchers reside. The catching tandem of Josh Phegley and Nick Hundley was one of the team’s biggest question marks entering the season, but Phegley is turning into an offensive force and Hundley is just starting to catch fire now, too, providing three hits, including a homer and a double and reaching base four times in Oakland’s 7-2 victory Wednesday. Mark Canha added his second homer in two days, his fifth of the road trip.
The A’s, even in the absence of reigning home run king Khris Davis, are thriving. With the entire lineup getting in on the act, the team has won six in a row and is unbeaten in its past seven games, including Sunday’s suspended game at Detroit.
“This is the type of baseball we expect to play,” Hundley said. “We expect to go out there and pitch well, we’ve been playing really good defense, and up and down the lineup we have the ability to drive the ball.
“This is what we envisioned at the start of the season. It isn’t what we were doing at the start of the season, but that doesn’t matter now.”
With Wednesday’s victory,
the A’s are back at .500, 25-25, and they return home for a nine-game homestand that opens Friday against Seattle and includes two other AL West teams, the Angels and Astros.
“We know we’re good enough to go on a roll, home or road,” manager Bob Melvin said. “I know we’ll feel good going home, get an off day and hopefully this can continue.”
Hundley is 11-for-28 over his past 13 games after opening with three hits in 30 at-bats, and the A’s No. 9 hitters have combined to hit .264 with seven homers and 28 RBIs, second highest in the league in each category.
“I think I was just really bad the first weeks, month of the season, April,” Hundley said. “I just wasn’t a very good baseball player, I was doing a lot of things wrong. It’s time to do things right.”
Hundley worked with hitting coach Darren Bush and assistant hitting coach Mike Aldrete on getting his legs back into his swing; he had no power behind his stroke in April, but now he’s driving the ball the other way, as he did on his second-inning homer. “Whenever I’m called upon now, I feel like I can do damage,” Hundley said.
“He’s swinging the bat really well now,” Melvin said. “We knew it would come sometime, but it’s more difficult to do when you’re not getting consistent at-bats.”
The rotation also has shown major improvement this month; A’s starters have a 2.95 ERA over their past 22 games. On Wednesday, it was Frankie Montas, who earned his teamhigh sixth win by working six innings, allowing five hits and two walks. He struck out nine. Montas hasn’t given up more than three runs in any of his 10 starts, and he hasn’t allowed a homer in his past 44 innings, the longest active streak in the majors by a starter.
It wasn’t the easiest outing: He threw 101 pitches, and he needed to extract himself from a couple of bad spots. In the first, with men at second and third and one out, Montas struck out Jake Bauers and got Jose Ramirez to fly out. In the second inning, with men at second and third and two outs, Montas struck out Francisco Lindor. With two on and one out in the fifth, Montas struck out Carlos Santana and Bauers.
“I thought he did a really good job of making quality pitches when he had to because they battled him,” Hundley said. “They had traffic out there. But when he needed to, he made really good pitches.”
The A’s scored in six of the first seven innings, with Canha sending in one in the first on a groundout and Robbie Grossman hitting a sacrifice fly. Hundley homered to right off Jefry Rodriguez in the second, and in the third, Matt Olson doubled and scored on a base hit by Grossman. In the fourth, Canha — hitting in Davis’ DH spot — doubled in a run, and he crushed his solo homer in the sixth off former A’s reliever Dan Otero. Canha has homered five times in 27 at-bats since coming off the injured list, and he has seven homers overall.