The Oakland Athletics are in a rare position in their dreadful season.
They have only 16 wins, the fewest in the majors, but they are riding a four-game winning streak, and a victory Sunday over the host Milwaukee Brewers would give Oakland its first series sweep of the season.
After beating the Brewers 5-2 in the opener on Friday, the Athletics got a game-winning RBI single from Aledmys Diaz in a 2-1 victory in 10 innings on Saturday.
Oakland will send left-hander JP Sears (0-3, 4.20 ERA) to the mound in the finale against veteran right-hander Freddy Peralta (5-5, 4.55).
The Athletics’ last sweep was the final series of last season, vs. the Los Angeles Angels. Oakland finished 60-102.
But you have to go back to April 2021, when the A’s had a 13-game winning streak with nearly an entirely different roster, to match the feeling the 2023 club has now.
At least Oakland will ride a hot pitcher on Sunday.
Sears, one of the key prospects in the August 2022 trade that sent Frankie Montas and Lou Trivino to the New York Yankees, has allowed two or fewer earned runs in each of his last five starts.
Unfortunately, Oakland has lost four of those, going back to May 14 when he allowed two earned runs to the Texas Rangers in a game the Athletics lost 11-3.
“This has been a great stretch,” Oakland manager Mark Kotsay told reporters Saturday. “If you’ve been watching this club from April, it wasn’t great at all in any aspect of the game, whether it was pitching, defense, hitting, whatever.
“It’s nice to see these results happening for this group. We’ve worked really hard. Now you can kind of see the group coming together collectively. They believe in each other and form a culture that’s reflective of the performances of late.”
The A’s have won three of their last four series after winning just one of their first 17.
The Brewers’ big problem remains getting the bats going. Milwaukee is ranked in the bottom five in slugging, on-base percentage and OPS.
In 10 games this month, the Brewers have scored more than five runs in a game just twice.
“We haven’t been getting enough offense, and that’s going to get you beat,” Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell said after Saturday’s game. “You’ve got to be able to deliver on it when you get your pitch.”
Rowdy Tellez leads the Brewers with 12 home runs, and the only other player in double digits in homers is Willy Adames with 10. Christian Yelich leads the Brewers in stolen bases with 16.
Peralta is 1-3 with a 6.57 ERA in his last five starts, but in the one no-decision in that bunch, he struck out nine over five innings in a 4-3 Brewers win over the visiting Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday.
Peralta has faced the Athletics only once in his career, and it came in relief. On July 30, 2019, he gave up a go-ahead home run to Khris Davis in a 3-2 Brewers’ loss in Oakland.
–Field Level Media
