Average hitters need not apply

How important batting average is or isn’t took up a chunk of A’s hitting coach Darren Bush’s Zoom call with the media Friday afternoon.

Through Thursday, the A’s ranked 26th in the majors with a .219 average. Of the nine Oakland hitters with at least 70 atbats, only three — Matt Olson (.280), Jed Lowrie (.265) and Ramón Laureano (.259) — had averages over .250.

Yet, the A’s were atop the AL West with a 1914 record. In last year’s 60game season, they went 3624 and won the division by seven games despite a .225 average that ranked 25th in the majors.

“The name of the game is scoring runs,” Bush said. “As long as we’re scoring runs, our batting average — I don’t get too concerned about it. As long as we’re putting up runs and winning games because that’s the objective: score runs and win.”

Through Thursday, the A’s were averaging 4.21 runs per game, 19th in the majors. Though their batting average ranked in the bottom five of the majors, their onbase (.308, 18th) and slugging (.390, 16th) percentages were middle of the pack. That left their OPS at .698, 17th in the big leagues.

The A’s won 97 games in each of the 2018 and ’19 seasons. They ranked in the top 10 in the majors in OPS in each of those years: .764 for fifth in 2018 and .776 for 10th in 2019.

Bush said it’s more important for the A’s to move from the middle of the pack to near the top in OPS than it is to

move from the bottom to the middle of the pack in batting average.

“Something that we talk about is hard contact,” Bush said. “Hit it hard. Don’t worry about hitting it far. Hit it hard. And when you hit the ball hard, those (OPS) numbers tend to go up. …

“Even though the batting average is low — we want it higher — but it is important that OPS is high because you have to be able to produce runs.”

Shortstop Elvis Andrus came into Friday with a .143 batting average (15for105). His only three extrabase hits were doubles.

Andrus went hitless in 11 atbats in the justcompleted fourgame series with Toronto, but Bush found some reasons to be encouraged.

“We have to continue on the process that we’re on because although it hasn’t shown up on the field for him in results,” Bush said, “the last few atbats, he’s stayed through the ball. He stayed the other way, and he didn’t get the results we’d like to see, but those atbats are better atbats.”