by Amaury Pi-Gonzalez

photo credit:fansided.com–A’s manager Bob Melvin who interviewed with Amaury Pi Gonzalez Mon Mar 14, 2016

Hohokam Park, Mesa. March 14. Monday–One of the best and most underrated managers in the game is Bob Melvin of the Oakland Athletics. He has led the A’s to three postseason appearances in the last four plus seasons. He was born in Palo Alto and currently lives in Berkeley; he will be 55 years old next October. Before the games between the A’s and their Bay Area rivals San Francisco Giants, we sat on the bench dedicated to the late Bob Welch A’s pitcher, at the right hand corner of the A’s dugout. This was the first night game this spring for the Athletics.

Q: We are almost at the half way part of this seasons Spring Training for your team, the news on pitcher Jarred Parker was not good, but overall, can you give me an overview of how you see your team at this time?

Melvin: ”We are about as .500 as you can get, we are 5-5-2(5 wins 5 loses and 2 ties) but we have seen a lot of good things, we have some new players we are looking at different positions, we are looking at the health of our players at this point, Our numbers would suggest like games six to 14, you run into some injury problems and we have tried to combine that with giving guys two days off, and then maybe a little bit two days and extend them from now and basically at this time we are trying to keep everybody healthy, obviously the Jarrod Parker situation is not pretty, someone I have grown to be very close with – he has been here for a while and he has many friends on this side of the field, I feel for the kid and you know as good as he was, and as good a person as he is as hard as he works. This has been a couple of tough tough days for everybody here”.

Q: You do a tremendous job with a team that basically changes in player personal every year. What is the biggest challenging for you every year come Spring Training?

Melvin: “Well, you know there are a lot of variables to that, trying to create the good clubhouse dynamic that we have been known for a team that embraces individualism and let them do their thing, and we had some success in doing that, and obviously last year we have some difficulty, we do have some turnover here, but we have guys that have been here for a while, like Coco Crisp, Sonny Gray, Stephen Vogt, Josh Reddick and the keys for those guys in the clubhouse is to make everybody feel comfortable, we had some turnover coaches-wise too, having Ron Washington back here has been terrific, is great to have him like another manager with a sounding voice too, and was has gone under the radar here this spring is the return of Mark Kotsay as a coach in an Oakland A’s uniform, he quit playing just a couple of years ago and players have a ton of respect for him and he is really good in this job he is taking it to it like a natural he has schedules and a lot of things that he has to take care specially in Spring Training and he has handled it flawlessly, so at this time I am very happy with him and my coaching staff”

Q:Can you tell me about this young pitcher you have by the name of Sean Manaea, the scouts speak very highly of him.

Melvin: “For good reason….he is a great talent he pitched in the Fall League this year and for a young guy to come to camp and into a new organization he is out there with the mind that he needs to work on things, can’t say enough of good stuff about him, we will see him a few more times hopefully and really the sky is the limit for this kid”

Q: Finally. Today is the first night game of this training camp for our team, I believe years ago they played night games towards the end of the spring schedule. Guys like the great Orlando Cepeda has told me he liked to play more at night; he could see the ball better. How do you feel about that?

Melvin: “I do like that, once you play so many day games in a row, and everyday seems to be the same, this plays in nicely, and playing the Giants on a TV game there is more enthusiasm, we have Sonny Gray on the mound tonight and Johnny Cueto for them, this would suggest a nice little break in the action. As far as playing I night, I like it when I used to play I usually play during the days on Sundays, since I was s semi-backup guy, so I got used more to playing during the day, but I think the routine of playing the night games is better for the players, they are not getting up early and rushing to the park.”

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Angels Spanish TV voice and the A’s Spanish radio voice and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com