by Jerry Feitelberg

The Oakland A’s continue their two-city six-game road trip Friday night in Phoenix when they face the Arizona DiamondBacks in interleague play. Since the A’s will be in a National League park, the designated hitter will not be used and the pitcher will have to hit. The A’s have one more series in interleague play and that will occur when the San Francisco Giants cross the bay to face the A’s for three games on September 25th, 26th and 27th. It will also be the last three home games of the season for the A’s.

The D-Backs finished 2014 with a won-loss record of 64-98. Over the winter, the D-Backs hired former A’s manager and a member of Baseball’s Hall of Fame, Tony La Russa as their Chief Baseball Officer. They named former A’s pitching great, Dave Stewart, as their Senior Vice-President and General Manager. They also hired former A’s bench coach, Chip Hale to be the club’s manager. Hale was Bob Melvin’s bench coach the last three seasons but will be starting his eleventh year working for Arizona. The team has several other former A’s on their coaching staff. Mike Fetters, who was with the club in 1998, is the club’s Quality Assurance Coach. Don’t ask me what that means but it sounds like a good job. Mike Harkey, who is the pitching coach, played for Oakland during the 1995 season. Dave McKay is the first base coach and he held that position when La Russa managed the A’s from 1986 to 1995. Ariel Prieto, who was a translator here when the A’s employed Yoenis Cespedes and Bartolo Colon, is the  D-Backs coach/interpreter

The D-Backs have improved their won-loss record so far this year. They have a record of 62-64 and will play one more game before starting the series with the A’s Friday night. They have lost three in a row but are 5-5 in the last ten games. Arizona will send Chase Anderson to the mound to pitch Friday night. Other starters include Robby Ray, Jhoulys Chacin, Patrick Corbin and Rubby De La Rosa. Corbin pitched Wednesday night and De La Rosa is scheduled to pitch Thursday.  The bullpen is manned by Daniel Hudson, David Hernandez, Andrew Chafin, Addison Reed, Randall Delgado, Josh Collmenter and their closer is Brad Ziegler. Ziegler is a former A and has twenty-three saves to his credit in 2015.

The D-Backs offense is led by Paul Goldschmidt. Goldy is hitting .331 and is third  in the National League in that department. He has hit 25 homers and knocked in 94. The other big bats in the lineup are right fielder David Perata, center fielder A.J.Pollock, and right fielder Ender Inciarte. Peralta is batting .303 with thirteen home runs and sixty-seven RBIs. Pollock checks in with a .321 average with thirteen dingers and 54 RBIs. Inciarte is at .295, four homers, and 34 RBIs. In addition, Yasmany Tomas, in his first season in the Majors, playing forty-nine games in right and thirty-one at third base is at .292, eight home runs and forty-three runs batted in in just ninety-eight games.

Jake Lamb plays most of the game at third, Chris Owings is at second and shortstop is manned by Nick Ahmed.The veteran, Aaron Hill fills in as a utility player. Catching is handled by Wellington Castillo and Jarrod Saltalamacchia.

The A’s, in the meantime, will be looking to break a modest two-game losing streak. The A’s won the first game of the road trip but lost the last two games to the Mariners in Seattle. At this point in the season, the A’s will be looking at their players and will be evaluating them for 2016. For example, Mark Canha is playing every day at first base. Ike Davis is on the DL for the rest of the year and Canha, hopefully, will take advantage of the opportunity and show that he does not have to be platooned. The A’s will also be making decisions on second baseman Eric Sogard. Sogard can also play short and is relatively inexpensive. The A’s may want to keep him around. The A’s have moved Brett Lawrie over to second to give Danny Valencia playing time at third base. Lawrie is fun to watch. He is just twenty-five years old and has played well all year. Valencia, in the short time that he has been an A, probably will return next year as the A’s third baseman. A’s shortstop Marcus Semien has been a work in progress. Semien can hit and has some pop in his bat. His big problem has been fielding. While his error rate slowed down since the start of the season, he still has committed thirty-two so far and is just two shy of the record of thirty-four held by Burt Campaneris in 1968.The big question for the A’s in the outfield will be left field. Coco Crisp is not having a good year. Crisp has been slowed by injuries the last two years and he has not been able to get it going this year.  Coco is hitting just .152. He has been so important to this team since 2010 and the A’s hope that he can return to his high level of play. Burns in center and Reddick in right should be back.

The big reclamation project over the winter should be the bullpen. The A’s need a closer. Last year’s closer, Sean Doolittle, has been on the DL most of the season. His last two appearances were not great. Doolittle has lost velocity and command. He will need to get stronger over the winter if he is to return to that role. The bullpen, at times, has been the arson, squad. Evan Scribner started well but has given up too many home runs. Fernando Rodriguez, Fernando Abad, Drew Pomeranz, Edward Mujica, Pat Venditte, and Dan Otero have all been inconsistent. The A’s have the most blown saves in baseball and they have lost the most one-run games, too.

The A’s vs the D-Backs for three in Phoenix. Should be a good series. Opportunity for the A’s to evaluate their players and opportunity for the D-Backs to continue to improve.