A's finally cruising

Oakland’s fairly cushy post-break schedule — mostly at home, several sub-.500 opponents — takes a twist beginning Friday with a three-game series at Anaheim.
Over the next month, the bulk of the team’s games will come against AL West teams, including 10 against their nearest pursuer for the second wild-card spot, the Mariners, and six against division-leading Houston.
“It will be a good test,” third baseman Matt Chapman said on The Chronicle’s A’s Plus podcast, noting that after next Thursday’s day off, Oakland will play 20 days in a row. “When we come out of the other side of that stretch, we’ll see what we’re really made of.”

Early in the season, the A’s only real struggles came against teams in the West. They went 10-24 against their division until mid-June; a three-game sweep by Houston put them at 34-36 overall on June 14.

Then, Oakland took two of the next three from the Angels, beginning a 34-11 run, the best mark in the majors during that span. Only eight of those 45 games came against the West, but the A’s took three of four at Houston, a team that has owned Oakland in recent years, and swept four at Texas.

 

Oakland’s fairly cushy post-break schedule — mostly at home, several sub-.500 opponents — takes a twist beginning Friday with a three-game series at Anaheim.
Over the next month, the bulk of the team’s games will come against AL West teams, including 10 against their nearest pursuer for the second wild-card spot, the Mariners, and six against division-leading Houston.
“It will be a good test,” third baseman Matt Chapman said on The Chronicle’s A’s Plus podcast, noting that after next Thursday’s day off, Oakland will play 20 days in a row. “When we come out of the other side of that stretch, we’ll see what we’re really made of.”
Early in the season, the A’s only real struggles came against teams in the West. They went 10-24 against their division until mid-June; a three-game sweep by Houston put them at 34-36 overall on June 14.

Then, Oakland took two of the next three from the Angels, beginning a 34-11 run, the best mark in the majors during that span. Only eight of those 45 games came against the West, but the A’s took three of four at Houston, a team that has owned Oakland in recent years, and swept four at Texas.

“Obviously, teams don’t want to play us now, especially on the road, because they know how good we are on the road,” catcher Jonathan Lucroy said. “We hit better on the road than we do at home, because our home stadium is a pitchers’ park. Being able to go on the road, some of our power shows up a lot more. Teams are wary of that, they’re scared of that, they don’t like it, especially with the back end of our bullpen, they don’t want to get to that.
“Does it give us more confidence? Yes it does, absolutely.”
Oakland also is changing the equation by playing better at home, too, winning 15 of the past 18 games at the Coliseum by taking advantage of a fairly soft portion of the schedule.
With 22 of the next 29 games coming within the division, the question now is: Are the A’s, with essentially a new rotation and an even better bullpen than they had earlier in the year, a fundamentally different team from the one that wilted against the West?

Could they put ground between themselves and Seattle, which is 2½ games back in the race for the second wild-card spot after winning 8-6 in Houston on Thursday night — or even gain ground on the Astros?

“You can’t be naive to what’s at stake but you have to stay in the moment,” second baseman Jed Lowrie said. “If you start to think about it more or start putting more pressure on yourself because of the situation, nothing good ever comes of it. We’ve done a really good job of that.”
That is typical of the businesslike A’s: They will not be overly fixated on the significance of this stretch. They’ll just keep trying to do what they do best, handing late leads to their formidable bullpen.

“I’ve always been of the belief you treat every game the same. You keep a high intensity level no matter who you’re playing,” Lucroy said. “Obviously, record-wise, playing teams in our own division is more important from that angle. Any ground you can make up is great for a playoff run.”
Second-place Oakland trails the Astros by 4½ games, but could be facing the world champs at less than full strength next week: Houston has been particularly shorthanded with Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, George Springer and Lance McCullers all out of action. Correa is set to return Friday. Springer might be back in the lineup when the Astros visit the Coliseum for three games next weekend, with Altuve’s timeline a little less defined.

The fourth-place Angels, first up in this stretch, are no pushovers. They’re coming off a sweep of the Tigers, and they’re back to the .500 mark. Plus, Mike Trout, who missed the past seven games with a wrist injury, is expected to play against the A’s.
“I think our division is the best division in baseball,” Chapman said. “I don’t know if that’s me being biased, but until just recently, the Angels were over .500, too.
“The good thing about (the A’s) is that no matter what happens, we just keep pushing and keep going forward. We’ve made up a lot of ground in a little time, so not one game is time to panic. We got swept by Colorado and got right back on track. We’re thinking big picture, we just have to keep trending in the right direction.”