Rosenthal: Blame the bullpen for the A's struggles, but also blame their situation

New York Times

2 days ago

On May 13, the Athletics won the opener of a three-game series at Dodger Stadium 11-1. The next night, in a game started by Cy Young contender Yoshinobu Yamamoto, they trailed the Los Angeles Dodgers in the eighth inning 4-3. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, they collapsed. Not just that night. For the next three weeks.
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The Dodgers' five-run eighth sent the A's into a 1-20 nosedive resulting almost entirely from the failures of their bullpen. That's the baseball explanation, at least. But for owner John Fisher's vagabond franchise, wandering from Oakland to West Sacramento to the supposed promised land of Las Vegas, it's not the entire story.
Not when the A's are 9-22 at Sutter Health Park, the second-worst home record in the majors, ahead of only the Colorado Rockies' 6-22 mark. And not when they're stuck at their minor-league facility through at least 2027, unlike the Tampa Bay Rays, who are playing in a minor-league park only because of a natural disaster, and only this season.
'It's certainly daunting when you zoom out and look at it,' said the A's All-Star closer, Mason Miller. 'But a blessing of being a ballplayer is you get to show up today. Today is what matters. Nothing tomorrow is guaranteed. That, at least, is how I approach it.'
It is the right and only way to approach it. But that doesn't make playing at Sutter Health Park easier. The clubhouses are located in the outfield, instead of being connected to the dugout. And even after approximately $11 million in renovations, the A's reality is undeniable — they are playing in a Triple-A facility, and sharing it with the San Francisco Giants' top affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats.
The Rays, 20-19 at home after a 9-16 start, found a way to adjust to their own unusual conditions at Steinbrenner Field, the spring training home of the New York Yankees. The A's, for whatever reasons, have been less successful. Their $67 million free agent, right-hander Luis Severino, is the symbol of the team's difficult transition. Severino's ERA is 6.99 at home, 0.87 on the road.
'The circumstances are what they are. We can't change those,' said A's manager Mark Kotsay, a former major-league outfielder. 'We have to find a way to embrace and make this our home like we did in Oakland.
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'It's two different ballparks, but I can remember as a visiting player coming to Oakland always feeling uncomfortable, always feeling, 'Wow, I don't have a cage to hit in, I don't have this, I don't have that.' But on the home side, you use that as an advantage.'
Miller noted the wind at Sutter Health can be problematic, changing the trajectories of fly balls at different points of the day. The A's lead the majors with 96 home runs allowed, 55 at home. But as Miller said, 'The other team is pitching in the same environment. We don't really have an excuse to fall back on.' Especially when the recent failures of the bullpen extend to the road, where the A's have lost 11 straight games.
Through May 13, the A's 'pen ranked 27th in the majors with a 5.04 ERA and 24th with a .750 opponents' OPS — not good. But their numbers in the 19 games before the past two were astonishingly bad. An ERA of 8.19 (Colorado was next worst at 5.27). An opponents' OPS of .966 (Colorado was next worst at .852).
The last two nights, Kotsay has used openers, trying to build the confidence of struggling relievers by inserting them at the start of a game rather than in a late-inning, high-leverage situation.
The A's grew concerned about their middle-inning relief early in the season, realizing if they fell behind, they would struggle to keep games close. Injuries to veteran relievers José Leclerc and T.J. McFarland left the 'pen with too little experience. And the back-end types who enjoyed early success — Grant Holman and Justin Sterner, Tyler Ferguson and Miller — all began to slump, seemingly at once. Holman and Sterner are in their first full seasons, Ferguson and Miller their second.
'It's not easy to come as a minor-league reliever and have immediate impact or success in the big leagues, and continued success,' Kotsay said. 'You look at a lot of the relievers, they obviously go up and down early in their careers before they establish themselves. Relying on those types of arms is tough.'
Miller, 26, is the most established and accomplished of the group, but his 10.38 ERA in May included a blown save at home against Philadelphia on May 24, when he allowed a game-tying, ninth-inning homer by Max Kepler. The A's went on to lose in 11 innings 9-6.
MAX KEPLER! pic.twitter.com/ElLRQ3KbJr
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) May 25, 2025
'At least from a bullpen perspective, when we do have a chance to win a game, we're squeezing a little bit too tight,' Miller said. 'Everybody knows about the streak of games we've lost. It's, 'Hey, let end it tonight.' We've played a lot of good teams, too. And our mistakes have been magnified, for sure.'
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One person with the club was only half-joking Wednesday that the only way for the A's to win a game right now might be by a score of 20-18. But with first baseman Nick Kurtz and third baseman Miguel Andújar on the injured list, even the A's offense, featuring the American League Rookie of the Month for May, shortstop Jacob Wilson, is diminished.
To think, the A's on May 5 were 20-16, one game behind Seattle in the AL West. Wilson and first baseman Tyler Soderstrom, two former first-round picks, were thriving. The team's top pitching prospect, Gunnar Hoglund, had just made his major-league debut. Kurtz's debut would come at the end of the month.
The relatively fast start, following last year's 32-32 record after the All-Star Game, provides a measure of reassurance — 'Out of the gates, we played well,' Kotsay said. 'That wasn't that long ago, really.' McFarland, who produced eight straight scoreless appearances before suffering a left adductor strain, is on a rehabilitation assignment. But Leclerc, a $10 million free-agent addition, is not expected to return from a lat strain until the second half.
Nothing sabotages a team like a bad bullpen. And the A's, facing the prospect of at least 243 'home' games over three seasons at Sutter Health Park, were always going to be in something of a precarious state.
The Rays can rationalize their situation, knowing they will play only one season in Tampa. The A's needed to succeed at home early to build confidence and reduce the chances of their conditions becoming a distraction. Instead, they lost their first four games at Sutter Health and six of their first seven. Not to mention 13 of their last 15.
The A's position-player group is the third-youngest in the league. Their pitching staff is the 12th youngest. A number of players surely are happy to be in the majors, even if they're playing in a minor-league park. They won't complain publicly, at least not yet. Neither will Kotsay and his coaches. No one wants to come off as entitled.
Still, Kotsay is in the most difficult position of any manager, and not just because his bullpen is a mess.
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The first year at Sutter Health figured to be tolerable for the players and staff, as long as the team showed improvement. The second year projected as perhaps the most difficult, with the move to Las Vegas still a good bit away. And in the third year, if indeed that is the last year, the team could have adopted the same mindset as the Rays — deal with it, and we'll be out of here soon.
The A's meltdown makes everything more challenging. If the meltdown was solely the product of bad baseball, that would be one thing. But it's also the product of a team put in a terrible position by its owner and league, a team being asked to play at a disadvantage and act as if everything is normal.
'We're just continually trying to show up and work each day and get back to that team we were at the start of the year,' Miller said. 'It's not like we didn't show that it was possible.'
Oh, it's possible. But the margin of error was always going to be thin.
If the A's fail to regain their equilibrium, no one should be surprised if their frustrations mount. And maybe even boil over.
(Photo of Mason Miller, A's manager Mark Kotsay and other A's players: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)