Dumb Luck, Bad Decisions Have Backed A’s Into Corner
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Down two games after two, the AL West champion Athletics are hardpressed to get the American League Championship Series back to Oakland. Traveling to Detroit for as many as three games, the Athletics have started experiencing what the Yankees already had to endure at the Tigers’ hands, and it’s something that doesn’t comfortably fit among the usual truisms about what wins in the postseason. The Tigers aren’t winning with great pitching, and they’re not winning by doing the little things. Instead, they’re simply pounding A’s starting pitching to paste, rocking starters Barry Zito and Esteban Loaiza for five runs apiece in the first four frames of Games 1 and 2. What’s brought the A’s to this situation, what could A’s manager Ken Macha have done, and what can he do to bring the series back to Oakland?
The Quick Hook? When a starter doesn’t have it early on in a postseason start, a manager doesn’t have the same freedom to wait and see if he’ll get himself ironed out. At this time of year, there are few tomorrows, and nobody gets a trophy for saving for tomorrow something that you really need today. Could Macha have helped himself by getting his starting pitchers out of the game earlier than he did?
Zito might have set down the first eight Tigers, but he wasn’t exactly cruising. The Tigers’ hitters weren’t being fooled at the plate, and Zito had battled through some long counts before things went south after Brandon Inge’s solo homer in the bottom of the third. After Inge’s shot went just fair, there’s the question of whether or not Zito lost his focus. Zito said he “started to nitpick a little bit instead of just coming right after them. This is the playoffs, so if you don’t get ahead in the count, it becomes more exposed than in the regular season.” Getting the nibbles can be especially deadly for a lefty who beats people with a well-spotted curve instead of overpowering them.
Zito’s already misses those spots with alarming frequency, finishing second in the AL in unintentional walks allowed (94), and third in hit batsmen (13).The Tigers aren’t the most patient team, ranking only 28th in the major leagues in walks drawn in total plate appearances, but they finished ninth in baseball in Isolated Power, a stat that measures how much power they generated on their base hits beyond first base. In short, give the Tigers their pitch, and they hit it hard better than most teams. Zito started missing his spots, and the Tigers started doing their thing. If you were wondering what value veteran catcher Jason Kendall was supposed to provide as a gamecaller or as an experience handler of pitchers in this situation, it wasn’t seen here.
After watching Loaiza surrender his five runs in the first four innings, could Ken Macha have spared himself Loaiza’s last, subsequently crucial pair of runs allowed in the sixth? Perhaps, but Loaiza only needed seven pitches to get through the fifth, and he’d thrown only 68 total pitches through five. Complicating matters was the A’s having to use four relievers to finish up their Game 1 loss, including key setup men Kiko Calero and lefty Joe Kennedy. Combined, you can understand the reasoning to leave Loaiza out there, and after getting the first two batters in the sixth — including the Tigers’ best, shortstop Carlos Guillen — it looked like Macha would get to the seventh with only those five runs allowed.
That brings us to one of the other things that have helped put the A’s down 2–0, which is plain old Dumb Luck. Generally speaking, teams like to carry a second lefthander in the bullpen to give the manager the freedom of action to use his second-best southpaw when his team is trailing. Pulling Loaiza with the now-immortal Alexis Gomez due up in the sixth might have made sense on a tactical level — Gomez bats lefty, while Loaiza had been smacked around by left-handers (.319 AVG/.369 OPS/.522 SLG). Unfortunately, a second lefty wasn’t in the A’s bullpen. Part of that was a tactical decision made because the Tigers carry a lineup heavy in right-handed hitters, and part of that was the recognition that of their three bats from the left side of the plate, only rookie center fielder Curtis Granderson has an exploitable platoon split. So Macha decided to forego carrying a second lefty, and he’d already used Kennedy in Game 1. Using him again to come in to face Gomez in the sixth down 5–3 would have meant Kennedy wouldn’t have been available later in the game. Subsequently, he ended up using Kennedy any way, but by then, it was too late to get back the two runs scored on Gomez’s homer. The right bullet wasn’t used at the right time, and the A’s were down four runs instead of two.
Happy circumstance rewarded Jim Leyland’s willingness to take a risk with Gomez, but the reason why it paid off was his willingness to take his cue from Casey Stengel, and look something up. Although first baseman Sean Casey isn’t really a legitimate lefty power source that was the role he was expected to help fill in the lineup. With Casey out, perhaps for the remainder of the series, Leyland wanted some lefty sock to exploit Loaiza’s platoon problems, and decided that he’d be better off playing the percentages than putting regular DH Marcus Thames in. Thames bats righty and was 0–5 against Loaiza on his career — not enough to say Loaiza owned him, but also nothing to discourage the veteran skipper from taking a chance and trying to add some lefty sock to a lineup that suddenly without Casey.
Taking that risk should serve as a reminder for Macha to take some risks of his own, and Start Playing the Percentages. Both of the Tigers starters in the first two games — lefty Nate Robertson and righthander Justin Verlander — have significant problems of their own. Robertson has struggled against righthanded hitters, who have collectively slugged .473 against him; he’s owned lefties. Macha knew that, but instead of plugging in lefty killer Bobby Kielty (.325/.358/.611), he went with regular Mark Kotsay — a left-handed hitter with a .293 OBP against lefties this year. Kotsay generated three outs in three at-bats. Macha had the same kind of decision in Game 2: Verlander let lefties hit .279/.342/.462, while limiting righthanders to .253/.313/.369. But rather than plug Dan Johnson’s lefty power stroke in the lineup, Macha left veteran right-handed hitting Jay Payton in left.Payton didn’t contribute anything to the A’s scoring while their other lefty bats went 6-for-12 against Verlander.
So now the A’s are down two games. Tigers’ Game 4 starter Jeremy Bonderman has allowed lefties to hit .284/.350/.472, while holding righties to .235/.275/.341 — will Macha continue to concede massive platoon disadvantages, or will he take a risk? At this point, he has little left to lose that isn’t already slipping through his fingers.
Ms. Kahrl is a writer for Baseball Prospectus. For more state-of-the-art analysis, visit baseballprospectus.com.