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UPDATE: After the publication of this article, The A's confirmed that Trevor Cahill would miss his start Saturday with an injury.
One by one, the runners of athletics continue to bite the dust. Sean Manaea, the last out since Aug. 26 with a left shoulder injury, is officially finished for the year – and maybe even for 2019 – after learning Tuesday he needed arthroscopic surgery . His departure leaves Oakland with only three starters in his rotation – and, more importantly, no clear answer on who to start in the wild card game AL.
By reaching the list of disabled people, Manaea joined a long list of A starters who succumbed to an injury. The butcher's beak includes Manaea, Brett Anderson (forearm strain), Daniel Gossett (Tommy John surgery), Paul Blackburn (lateral epicondylitis, aka tennis elbow), Andrew Triggs (nerve irritation arm) and Kendall Graveman (John Tommy Surgery). There is also Jharel Cotton and top prospect A.J. Puk, who both suffered collateral ulcer ligaments torn during spring training, were thus lost even before the start of the season.
It's a lot of bodies on the list of people with reduced mobility, including four-fifths of the Oakland Opening Day rotation; Daniel Mengden is the only member of this group still standing, but it is the losses of Manaea that hurt the most. The 26-year-old southpaw had a career year with a 3.59 ERA, 114 ERA + and 2.6 replacement wins (Baseball-Reference version) in 160 2/3 innings. The best launcher in thin rotation, Manaea was Oakland's most reliable and highest-ranking arm.
Without him, the starting five was reduced to a trio: Mike Fiers, Trevor Cahill and Edwin Jackson, none of whom participated in the opening day. Cahill started the year in Triple A, was called on April 17 and played well around a pair of DL relays, averaging 3.77 ERA and 109 ERA + in 102 2/3 innings. Proud, taken over by the Tigers in an exchange of waivers in August, has been sensational since it's put green and gold, with an average of 2.72 and 42 out of 39 2/3 on seven departures. And the veteran peripatetic Jackson was called miners on June 1 and was a savior for his 13e major league team, with an ERA of 3.26 out of 77 1/3 innings and 14 starts.
It's as unlikely as a trio that you can imagine carrying the weight of A's, but they do the job. Behind them, however, Oakland has nothing. The fourth place in the rotation currently belongs to veteran relief Liam Hendriks, with the opening strategy of the first leg of the A and the possibility of starting the first heat before sending it to the center.
The good news for A & B is twofold. First, the lack of starters had no impact on their chances of winning: they are 8-2 in September, have won six straight games and are three-game first-place Astros in AL West and of a Yankees game. the first joker. Secondly, Oakland has a lot of work to do, with a 9 ½ game lead over the Mariners in the division and an 8 ½ game advantage over the Rays in the wild-card race. Unless an unlikely collapse, A's can survive the rest of the season without full rotation and easily make the playoffs. (In addition, they will receive Anderson on Thursday, which should help at least a little).
The problem occurs once the calendar returns in October. As noted, the A's are within reach of the AL West Astros, but there are only 16 games remaining without a face-to-face match with Houston. At the same time, Oakland's chances of pushing the reigning world champions are slim: even with his winning streak, Fangraphs gives the A just 3.3% chance of winning the division. It's probably a rendezvous with the Yankees in the game of wild cards, and that's where Manaea's injuries made it difficult because it would have been the easy choice to start this fight. Instead, this responsibility will likely fall to Cahill, Fiers or Jackson (or maybe Anderson). But if all have worked well this season, if you're a fan of A, do you feel comfortable seeing one of these four players on the Yankee Stadium mound?
Jason O. Watson / Getty Images
There are arguments you can make for them. Cahill is a baseball machine that has been surprisingly strong several times in a drive (an OPS 0.642 the third time compared to the league average of 0.789), but it allows too much contact and does not have a lot of withdrawals. The Proud pilots dams but are very comfortable (seven in 39 2/3 innings with the A's) because of a high balloon rate, which is good in the cavernous Oakland Coliseum, less appealing facing the small porch right Yankee Stadium. Jackson has heroically stepped up, but he's a 34-year-old mate with devices that suggest he's closer to a 5.00 ERA launcher and he should not be allowed to deal with more than one training . And Anderson is a southpaw who launches strikes by right-handers and we can not trust him to navigate several times in a typing order.
The best you can expect from anyone in this quartet is an evening of five flights followed by a bullpen. This is an advantage for track and field, as their backup corps is one of the best in the MLB: the 3.21 ERA is the second lowest baseball. So why not just give the entire game back to this group and let them navigate this line of merciless Yankees instead of closing their eyes and praying that Fiers or Cahill could come out unscathed? Chances are against any entry in this group go more than four innings anyway.
Unlike its rotation, the Oakland bullpen is ridiculously deep and full of talent. The closest Blake Treinen has an ERA of 0.87 and 94 strikeouts in 72 1/3 innings. Rookie Lou Trivino has an average of 2.18 ERA and 78 perforations in 70 1/3 frames. Jeurys Familia has an ERA of 2.45 and 33 strikeouts in 25 2/3 innings (with 12 steps) since arriving at the end of July. The erratic Fernando Rodney, acquired from the Twins in August, has 16 puffs in 15 2/3 innings. And rightly so, Shawn Kelley has not allowed to participate in 12 matches since it was withdrawn waivers after the departure of the Nationals in early August. Beyond that, manager Bob Melvin also has the choice of veteran Yusmeiro Petit (3.14 ERA in 86 innings) and Southpaw Ryan Buchter (.179 / .243 / .284 against lefties).
Between these seven rescuers, Melvin should be able to assemble nine effective innings without having to trust one of his most shaky starters. Treinen, Familia, Petit and Trivino are all capable of making several innings. All these throwers would be completely rested, with two days between the end of the season and the wild-card match, and they would take a day off before the Division Division, leaving them ready for the first game. And Treinen, Familia and Trivino are all hard on right-handers, making them ideal weapons against Yankees training.
The idea of playing a must-play playoff game may seem scary, but for the A's this seems like a safer bet. Why launch a medium launcher against a formidable range while you can simply deploy a steady stream of elite relief? The Yankees did it in the match against the Twins, although it was not intentional: when starter Luis Severino was eliminated in the first round, four others, Chad Green, Tommy Kahnle, David Robertson and Aroldis Chapman , have combined to get the last 26 of the New York victory. It is a strategy that can work if you have the right staff and the A do it absolutely.
Melvin still has two weeks to figure out what he wants to do for his team's first trip to the playoffs in four years. The last time, he had an easy helping hand: he gave the ball to Jon Lester, who nonetheless fought the Royals. This season, his choice will be much more difficult. Here is a vote, then, for the unconventional option.
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