By Morris Phillips

If any one thing personifies the 2014 Oakland A’s it’s the blowout victory. And in keeping with that theme, if one statistical measure highlights the team’s meteoric rise, it’s run differential.

The A’s were in character again on Sunday, unloading on the Orioles in a 10-2 win on Sunday, with super second-year starter Sonny Gray winning his 11th game of the season. The lopsided affair marked the 22nd time this season the A’s have won a game by at least five runs. And as manager Bob Melvin touched on in the post-game press conference, there’s an art to the blowout.

“We had a good approach today, made a tough pitcher who pitched well against us last time work, and that’s usually when we’re at our best. You make a guy work, make him a little more predictable, get in some better counts, then you pass the baton on to the next guy,” Melvin explained.

That normally tough pitcher, Kevin Gausman defeated the A’s on June 7 in Baltimore. That day the A’s fell 6-3 and Gray took the loss. This time Gausman didn’t survive the fifth inning as the A’s picked their spots and attacked him with great success. If the approach sounds familiar, it’s only because it’s one of the hallmarks of Billy Beane’s Moneyball: the ability to successfully hit deep in pitch counts.

“They pick their spots to ambush,” Gausman said. “I think they were pretty patient today and they took a lot of good pitches. They took pitches that were just a couple of inches off that I wasn’t getting called strikes.”

The A’s scored twice in the first, once each in the third and fourth and three times in the fifth to build a 7-1 lead. John Jaso was the most frequent offender with an RBI triple in the first and a RBI single in the fourth. While catcher Derek Norris took a well-deserved day off on the heels of his lengthy stint in the All-Star game and starts in the first two games of the series, backup catcher Jaso and catcher turned jack-of-all-trades Stephen Vogt took over. The duo went 5 for 9 with three RBI on Sunday.

The win ended a stretch of 17 games in which the A’s played five opponents that are also in position to play in the post-season with the disclaimer that the Blue Jays fell slightly off pace after being swept by the A’s last week. After losing the first three games of the stretch to the Tigers, the A’s responded with wins in 10 of the final 14.

Now the A’s get 16 of their next 19 games against teams with losing records. And if bad opponents translate into occasional blowouts, the A’s could be on a historical pace. Already the A’s have reached the All-Star break with the 14th best run differential (+145) in the history of the game. That number—the difference between total runs scored and total runs allowed—hadn’t been achieved at the break since the 2001 Mariners were embarrassing opponents on the way to 116 regular season wins.

Those Mariners—led offensively by rookie Ichiro Suzuki and mysteriously pumped-up Bret Boone–ended that season +300 in run differential. With 64 games remaining, the A’s stand at +150.

In keeping with the theme of clicking offensively and defensively, what sets the A’s 22 blowouts apart is the quality of pitching in those games. In 20 of the 22 blowouts, the A’s have allowed three runs or less. On Sunday, Gray was at the top of his game, allowing just two hits and a run while striking out eight.

“He’s one of the best pitchers in the American League right now,” Orioles’ manager Buck Showalter said of Gray. “Real good angle on his slider, command. It’s not like he’s picking on us. He’s been doing it most all year.”

The A’s get a day off Monday before welcoming the youthful, but suddenly respectable Astros to the O.co Coliseum on Tuesday. Scott Kazmir will take the mound for the A’s with Brett Oberholtzer going for the Astros in a 7:05pm start.