by Jerry Feitelberg

The Oakland A’s will host the Chicago White Sox this weekend at the O.co Coliseum. The White Sox come to town with a record of 14-17 and their manager, Robin Ventura, is under fire for his team’s poor performance so far this year. Ventura is in his fourth season as skipper of the Sox. White Sox general manager, Rick Hahn, made several moves in the off-season to improve the team. The White Sox won 73 games and lost 89 and Hahn decided to improve the pitching by trading for Jeff Samardzija and signing former Yankee closer David Robertson and setup man Zach Duke. Hahn nabbed first baseman Adam Laroche from the Washington Nationals and outfielder Melky Cabrera from the Toronto Blue Jays. The Sox also signed utility man Emilio Boniface.

The White Sox pitching staff is led by lefty Chris Sale and Jose Quintana. The White Sox also have hitting star Jose Abreu who was the AL Rookie of the Year and finished fourth in the balloting for MVP. The rest of the Sox rotation in 2015 will be John Danks, Hector Noesi and Carlos Rodon. Danks’ record is 1-3 with a 5.12 ERA while Noesi sports an 0-3 record with an ERA at 5.94. These are not good numbers and may be  the reason the White Sox are floundering.  Rodon’s record is 1-0 and his ERA is 2.92 since being called up by Chicago. The bullpen was a disaster last year, but Robertson is 3-0 with an ERA of 1.20 and has saved 7 games in 8 opportunities. Zach Duke has appeared in 15 games and Jake Petricka and Zach Putnam serve as setup men for the Sox.

The offense is led by right fielder Avasail Garcia whose   batting average is a robust.322 with 3 home runs and 11 RBI. Big Jose Abreu is hitting .288 with 6 homers and 20 RBI. Melky Cabrera is hitting a lowly .248 and Adam LaRoche is at .235 and shortstop Alexi Ramirez is at .241. Adam Eaton, who had a terrific year in 2014, is hitting a lowly .218.

The White Sox won their series with the Milwaukee Brewers before heading to Oakland. The Sox have won their last three series and the offense is now starting to come alive.

The A’s, on the other hand, are ten games under the .500 mark with a record of 13-23. The A’s are losing close games and need to make improvements in several areas of the game that are necessary for them to get out of the doldrums. Sonny Gray and Scott Kazmir have been stalwarts in the A’s rotation. Gray lost his first game yesterday to Boston, but he pitched well enough to win. Giving up one run and three hits in seven innings of work usually results in a win, but it did not happen as the A’s failed repeatedly to get the clutch hit that would have given Gray the victory. Kazmir has been solid all year except for one game. The rest of the starters have not shown that they can pitch well consistently.  Jesse Hahn, Jesse Chavez, and Drew Pomeranz all have records under .500 and have high ERAs. The bullpen has been a disaster all season and has a record of  two wins and ten losses. A’s closer Sean Doolittle is still on the DL and is at Stockton for rehab. Tyler Clippard, who was acquired to be a setup man, has filled in at closer and has been good for the most part. Evan Scribner has also been reliable but had a bad inning a couple of games ago and was victimized by the A’s defense on Wednesday. Lefty Eric O’Flaherty had bad outings and is now on the DL. Fernando Abad is also not pitching well. Abad had a good year for Oakland in 2014 but has not been the same in 2015. The A’s have added Angel Castro and Fernando Rodriguez in the hopes that they will strengthen the ‘pen, but it’s too early to tell.

There is a huge problem that Oakland has to address as soon as possible. Simply stated, the A’s defense is terrible. The A’s have the worst fielding percentage in all of baseball and have committed 36 errors in 36 games. Shortstop Marcus Semien, acquired from the White Sox in the Samardzija trade, has made 11 and several of them have been throwing errors. Semien did not play at shortstop for the White Sox and is really getting on-the-job training at short this year. The A’s offense, if one is looking at numbers only, looks formidable. Yes, the A’s have scored runs.Yes, Stephen Vogt and Josh Reddick are among the top ten hitters in the AL and Vogt leads the AL with 30 RBI. They have not won a single extra inning game this year and are 1-11 in one-run games. This indicates that they cannot get clutch hits when needed. They need a walk-off win or a win when they come back from a deficit to win.  If the went 6-6 in the one run games, their record would be 18-18. The season can be saved. They are not a terrible team, but they need to get their act together and start winning series. The time is now.