For a club that is on the brink of elimination, the A’s certainly are not showing any signs of panic.
Arriving for batting practice early Wednesday morning ahead of Game 3 of the American League Division Series against the Astros at Dodger Stadium, the A’s kept things loose. Some members of the A’s bullpen brought along a soccer ball and kicked it around in the outfield. Others were playing hacky sack near the infield.
“Backs against the wall in an elimination game, this is the time where you’ve got to have fun,” A’s third baseman Jake Lamb said. “Just get rowdy in the dugout. Do whatever it takes to win. It's a really good vibe in the clubhouse right now, especially for being an early morning for what seems like the 10th day in a row. We're ready to go. We're fired up.”
Part of what had the A’s feeling loose was a pregame meeting for all players with manager Bob Melvin. The message was simple: This is not a situation they haven’t been in before. The A’s found themselves in an 0-1 hole last week in a best-of-three AL Wild Card Series against the White Sox before winning two in a row. Why not come back from an 0-2 hole?
“We brought up the fact that we have been through a couple of these already,” Melvin said. “The fact that we've been through a couple of these would suggest that we know how to handle them. We can't worry about tomorrow, we can't worry about the next day, it's all about today. You win today's game, you're going to feel a lot better about going into tomorrow, so everything is kind of poured into today, knowing what's at stake.”
The focus for Wednesday will be to provide some early run support for Jesús Luzardo, who takes the mound for the must-win contest. Frankie Montas was the other starter in consideration for Game 3, and though Melvin felt good about either, he said the decision came down to pitching splits that slightly favored Luzardo.
“We're hoping they both pitch,” Melvin said. “One [pitches] on one day, one the other. We would have been comfortable with either, to tell you the truth, and it probably is all hands on deck for a while today. Frankie has come a long way recently after a tough stretch. And we always feel good about Jesús.”
Luzardo made a few costly mistakes in his postseason debut in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series, surrendering a pair of home runs and allowing three runs over 3 1/3 innings in a loss to the White Sox. So why go with the 23-year-old lefty for this all-important game? Following Luzardo’s rough outings in the regular season, Melvin has noticed that the rookie has an ability to quickly learn from his mistakes and correct them in his next start, usually finding success as a result of that.
“That's been the case from Day 1 with him,” Melvin said. “He's been very mature and very composed. I really believe that when he has a tough outing, it doesn't affect his confidence. It's more of a learning experience for him, and he takes something from an outing that might not have gone right as opposed to getting down on himself and losing confidence.
“We continue to show a lot of confidence in him, obviously, with pitching him today, and we think he's gonna have a good outing for us.”
Lineup tweaks
Upon first glance, Wednesday’s starting lineup for the A’s was a bit confusing. Usually stacking left-handed hitters at the top against right-handed starters, the batting order was right-handed heavy against Astros righty Jose Urquidy. But a quick look at the numbers will explain why.
Urquidy appears to have reverse splits, with right-handers slashing .297/.343/.492 against him over 14 career games, while lefties are slashing just .161/.201/.263.
“The splits are pretty significant. Both kind of analytically and in traditional numbers,” Melvin said. “It is a smaller sample size, so you balance that with some guys that you think are maybe swinging the bat a little bit better at this point, too. You want to go with guys that are hot.
“I've often said we're trying to get the lineup right every day for that particular day, and both those things would suggest some of the guys that are in there today are swinging the bat a little better and probably some more right-handed bats based on our analysis of him.”