A’s must overcome struggles in one-run games to be a factor
The story for the Oakland Athletics dating back to last season has been their inability to win close games. More specifically, the A’s have struggled mightily in games decided by one run.
Last season, Oakland finished an unthinkable 19-35 in one-run games, including beginning the season 2-15. Some might dismiss that as fluky, as the A’s obviously competed well in all of those games. However, the results could also be exposing a team that simply isn’t executing when necessary, which resulted in it consistently falling short.
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Oakland’s league-leading 126 errors last season would certainly back up the latter point.
With all of those things considered, we would understand if there was concern based on Oakland’s first two games in 2016. Indeed, they lost both to the Chicago White Sox by a single run. In the season opener on Monday, two critical errors led to a White Sox four-run third inning, and those would be all the runs Chicago could muster.
More importantly, those would be all the runs Chicago would need.
That speaks to how important it will be for Oakland to clean up its defense and overall execution. It’s really a necessity if they plan on contending this season, or at least staying relevant.
That will be something to watch for in Yahoo Sports’ Free MLB Game of the Day on Thursday. The A’s will be featured in their series finale against the White Sox, which begins at 3:35 p.m. ET. The game can be viewed at sports.yahoo.com or right here.
The good news for Oakland is they will enter with some good feelings after bouncing back to win Wednesday’s game 2-1.
Yes, a one-run victory.
They played a clean game behind ace Sonny Gray in his season debut. Gray missed Monday’s opener with food poisoning, but did his part to slow Chicago’s offense, tossing seven innings of one-run, three-hit ball. More importantly, the A’s held steady behind him. There was no real margin for error in that game, and Oakland didn’t buckle.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
