NEW YORK -- You pretty much have to hate your offense to bring your infield in with the score tied 0-0 in the bottom of the second inning and the other team's No. 9 hitter at the plate. But while Bob Geren obviously wouldn't admit to such dramatic motivation, that is what he did Tuesday night against the Yankees. And he did cite his team's offensive struggles as the reason for the move."The way we've been scoring runs, we just wanted to not give up a weak run right there with the 9-hitter up," the Oakland A's manager said after his team's 5-3 loss at Yankee Stadium.
Just Geren's luck, the A's gave up two runs right there as Brett Gardner grounded a single past second baseman Mark Ellis. And just like that, Oakland was staring up a hill. And these A's don't have what it takes to do the climbing.
To be fair, this night represented something of an offensive explosion for the A's. They got 12 hits, with represents 12.5 percent of the season total they'd racked up coming into the game. Their catcher, Kurt Suzuki, went off for four of those hits all by himself. This was about as awesome an offensive night as the A's have had since the start of the 2009 season.
But they still only managed three runs. And on this chilly, foggy Bronx night, they failed to hit a single ball over the fence of the much-publicized hitter's haven that is the brand new Yankee Stadium.
This should not come as a surprise. Because in spite of the big night in the hits column by Suzuki and his guys, this Oakland offense has so far this year been the kind of offense that makes one contemplate man's inhumanity to man.
In the first 13 games of this season, the A's have hit exactly three home runs. Three. Jack Cust has two of them, and Nomar Garciaparra has the other. Every other team in the majors has hit at least twice as many. The Texas Rangers lead the American League with 26.
"It's weird, because I mean, we're swinging the bats," said former Yankee Jason Giambi, who got a standing ovation from the Stadium crowd in his return. "I mean, you saw tonight. We hit some balls hard. I think we're playing a lot better that we're showing. We're just kind of in that mode where we can't get that big hit to break it open."
Case in point was Giambi's long drive to center in the first inning. Gardner, the Yankees' speedy young center fielder, ran the ball down and made an incredible leaping catch to rob Giambi of a sure extra-base hit and RBI.
"He should've listened to the ovation and let it drop," Giambi cracked.
Oakland's party line is the one Giambi espoused -- it looks bad now, but it will get better. It has to. The A's were a pitiful offensive team in 2008, but their off-season focused on beefing up the offense. They brought back Giambi, their former homegrown MVP who defected to New York after the 2001 season. They acquired Matt Holliday in a trade with the Rockies. They signed Orlando Cabrera and Garciaparra. These are not your older brother's Oakland A's. These A's are designed to score some runs.
So far, in 13 games, they've scored exactly 50 of them.
"It'll come," Ellis said. "It's early, and it'll come. We've got some good hitters here."
They have some good pitchers, too, as they always seem to. Dana Eveland had a rough second inning, allowing four runs on six hits, but was otherwise fine and could have blamed his defense for some of the trouble had he been so inclined. With the Angels struggling through injury problems, the AL West is wide open for anybody who wants it. But if the A's want it, they're going to have to figure out a way to get some production from the Holliday-Giambi middle of their order and start putting some runs on the board.
"We've had a lot of games where one timely hit would have made the difference," Geren lamented.
In this case, one ball over the outfield fence could have swung the game in Oakland's favor. But as Giambi said, "The place played like Yankee Stadium tonight."
It did indeed, and it could have been the weather, the pitching or the law of averages that made it do so.
But it could also have been the visiting team.
