Oakland to Keep Habit of Beating Losing Teams Like Detroit
Oakland closes a three-game home series against Detroit on Sunday at 4:05 ET. The A’s won’t fail to take their opponent seriously.
Tigers at Athletics
MLB Pick: Oakland
Detroit’s Francisco Liriano (3-5, 4.41 ERA) is struggling for efficiency. His poor command is preventing him from lasting longer, meaning that Detroit’s poor bullpen is seeing more of the mound. Liriano hasn’t lasted at least five innings since July 4. He’s lost four straight decisions with his last win coming in April.
Most frequently, Liriano has thrown his sinker and slider. But lately, he’s reduced his sinker usage by throwing more fastballs and change-ups. He needs to get away from his sinker because it’s lost velocity and he’s locating it poorly. For example, he leaves it with 6.31% frequency over the heart of the plate. In July, opponents slugged .821 against it, but he still threw it 31% of the time because he lacks alternatives. His fastball is performing worse, his slider is wildly inconsistent from outing to outing, and only his change-up has been effective.
Liriano excels against lefties, but Oakland’s lineup is loaded with right-handed batters. Its top eight hitters in terms of BA are right-handed. One could counter that Liriano has great numbers against Oakland, but they’re misleading. 48 of his 80 at-bats came against Jonathan Lucroy, Stephen Piscotty, and Jed Lowrie, but only 12 of those 48 at-bats came in 2016 or 2017 and none in 2018. All three individuals are strongly underachieving in slugging against him based on the metric xSLG-SLG, which shows what a hitter’s slugging rate should be based on quality of contact. Liriano’s career numbers against Oakland batters also discount important figures. Mark Canha, for instance, has had only two at-bats against Liriano. He’s batting close to .400 in his past seven days and slugs .661 against lefties. Khris Davis is batting over .300 and slugging over .750 in 19 career at-bats against Liriano and he’s hit eight homers in his past 15 days.
Oakland matches up well against Liriano, ranking fifth in slugging against the sinker and slider from lefties and is the second-most underachieving team metrically against them. Liriano will emphasize his change-up against Oakland as he tends to do against righties. Oakland ranks third in slugging against Liriano’s three favorite pitches. It’s true that Oakland has been shut down by recent left-handed starters, but they’ve also not featured the sinker and slider and when they have—Cole Hamels of Texas for instance, whose sinker Oakland slammed, and Andrew Suarez of San Francisco, whose slider Oakland slammed—they’ve given up a lot of runs. Oakland ranks second in slugging in the past two weeks against the sinker, slider, and change from lefties.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="de"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Did you know that <a href="https://twitter.com/mattolson21?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@mattolson21</a> leads <a href="https://twitter.com/MLB?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@MLB</a> in scoops?<br><br>Here are some of his best from *just* July
<a href="https://t.co/42Dpx08iDN">pic.twitter.com/42Dpx08iDN</a></p>— Oakland Athletics 
️ (@Athletics) <a href="
">4. August 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Oakland's Trevor Cahill (3-2, 3.39 ERA) is undefeated at home. He’s allowed five runs in six home starts, lasting at least six innings in all but one.
His favorite pitch is the sinker, but he only throws it with 36% frequency. His curveball, slider, and change-up make up 60% of his arsenal. He keeps the respective horizontal and vertical release points of his last three pitches very similar in order to mask which pitch is leaving his hand. He also sequences his pitches well in order to stay unpredictable.
At home, Cahill has been best against righties, who are batting .151 against him in Oakland. Detroit’s lineup is very righty-heavy. Its top hitter, Miguel Cabrera, is injured. Nicholas Castellanos is batting .250 against righties and is very cold overall. Jose Iglesias bats .254 against righties. Leonys Martin was a lefty who hits righties well, but now he plays for Cleveland. Detroit ranks near-last in slugging, both overall and recently, against Cahill’s four favorite pitches, from righties. Detroit has a winning record against southpaws, but is 31-49 against right-handed starts, yielding -7.8 units.
Oakland has dominated Detroit since last season, sweeping them in two consecutive series. Overall Oakland is also destroying non-playoff contenders since it escalated from being an above-.500 team at the end of last June, most recently sweeping Texas and Toronto.
Oakland closes a three-game home series against Detroit on Sunday at 4:05 ET. The A’s won’t fail to take their opponent seriously.
Tigers at Athletics
MLB Pick: Oakland
Detroit’s Francisco Liriano (3-5, 4.41 ERA) is struggling for efficiency. His poor command is preventing him from lasting longer, meaning that Detroit’s poor bullpen is seeing more of the mound. Liriano hasn’t lasted at least five innings since July 4. He’s lost four straight decisions with his last win coming in April.
Most frequently, Liriano has thrown his sinker and slider. But lately, he’s reduced his sinker usage by throwing more fastballs and change-ups. He needs to get away from his sinker because it’s lost velocity and he’s locating it poorly. For example, he leaves it with 6.31% frequency over the heart of the plate. In July, opponents slugged .821 against it, but he still threw it 31% of the time because he lacks alternatives. His fastball is performing worse, his slider is wildly inconsistent from outing to outing, and only his change-up has been effective.
Liriano excels against lefties, but Oakland’s lineup is loaded with right-handed batters. Its top eight hitters in terms of BA are right-handed. One could counter that Liriano has great numbers against Oakland, but they’re misleading. 48 of his 80 at-bats came against Jonathan Lucroy, Stephen Piscotty, and Jed Lowrie, but only 12 of those 48 at-bats came in 2016 or 2017 and none in 2018. All three individuals are strongly underachieving in slugging against him based on the metric xSLG-SLG, which shows what a hitter’s slugging rate should be based on quality of contact. Liriano’s career numbers against Oakland batters also discount important figures. Mark Canha, for instance, has had only two at-bats against Liriano. He’s batting close to .400 in his past seven days and slugs .661 against lefties. Khris Davis is batting over .300 and slugging over .750 in 19 career at-bats against Liriano and he’s hit eight homers in his past 15 days.
Oakland matches up well against Liriano, ranking fifth in slugging against the sinker and slider from lefties and is the second-most underachieving team metrically against them. Liriano will emphasize his change-up against Oakland as he tends to do against righties. Oakland ranks third in slugging against Liriano’s three favorite pitches. It’s true that Oakland has been shut down by recent left-handed starters, but they’ve also not featured the sinker and slider and when they have—Cole Hamels of Texas for instance, whose sinker Oakland slammed, and Andrew Suarez of San Francisco, whose slider Oakland slammed—they’ve given up a lot of runs. Oakland ranks second in slugging in the past two weeks against the sinker, slider, and change from lefties.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="de"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Did you know that <a href="https://twitter.com/mattolson21?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@mattolson21</a> leads <a href="https://twitter.com/MLB?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@MLB</a> in scoops?<br><br>Here are some of his best from *just* July
<a href="https://t.co/42Dpx08iDN">pic.twitter.com/42Dpx08iDN</a></p>— Oakland Athletics ️ (@Athletics) <a href="
">4. August 2018</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Oakland's Trevor Cahill (3-2, 3.39 ERA) is undefeated at home. He’s allowed five runs in six home starts, lasting at least six innings in all but one.
His favorite pitch is the sinker, but he only throws it with 36% frequency. His curveball, slider, and change-up make up 60% of his arsenal. He keeps the respective horizontal and vertical release points of his last three pitches very similar in order to mask which pitch is leaving his hand. He also sequences his pitches well in order to stay unpredictable.
At home, Cahill has been best against righties, who are batting .151 against him in Oakland. Detroit’s lineup is very righty-heavy. Its top hitter, Miguel Cabrera, is injured. Nicholas Castellanos is batting .250 against righties and is very cold overall. Jose Iglesias bats .254 against righties. Leonys Martin was a lefty who hits righties well, but now he plays for Cleveland. Detroit ranks near-last in slugging, both overall and recently, against Cahill’s four favorite pitches, from righties. Detroit has a winning record against southpaws, but is 31-49 against right-handed starts, yielding -7.8 units.
Oakland has dominated Detroit since last season, sweeping them in two consecutive series. Overall Oakland is also destroying non-playoff contenders since it escalated from being an above-.500 team at the end of last June, most recently sweeping Texas and Toronto.
Yuck.
