Replacing Sonny Gray in the A s rotation is a big deal, but teams all over MLB are having to do similar fixes.
There are times covering a baseball beat – or, presumably, any beat – when you run the risk of getting so close to the story that it s hard to see the story.
There s a saying about forests and trees that applies.
I mention this now because it seems that I ve spent the entire season writing about A s players being called up, being sent down and going on the disabled list. Especially going on the disabled list.
And there are some numbers to suggest that my assumption that the A s are setting records for all this roster rumbling isn t far off. The A s 25 uses of the disabled list are the most since the club moved to Oakland in 1968.
There are some numbers, however, that suggest it s time for me to chill about all this.
The A s have had nine starting pitchers go on the disabled list this year – Henderson Alvarez, Chris Bassitt, Felix Doubront, the since-traded Rich Hill (twice), Sean Manaea and Jarrod Parker in addition to Sonny Gray, who landed on the DL for the second time Sunday morning.
There s a case to be made that Parker shouldn t be counted as a starter, because he s likely to be a reliever whenever he s healthy again. But he s almost always been a starter, and he self identifies as a starter, so for our purposes, he s a starter.
And A s starting pitchers have missed a combined 602 starts this year. Let s make that 602 potential starts since there are only 162 games in a season. If they d all been healthy, some of them would have been in the minor leagues and some of them would have been traded, but any way you look at it, that s a ton of starts to miss.
Surely this is record territory.
Well, not so much. Let s look at it this way. The A s have mixed and matched the best they can in the rotation. They ve used 11 starting pitchers to cover their onslaught of injuries. The Cubs, who just left town, have only used seven starters. The Giants, lurking across the bay, have only used seven. Thirteen of the 30 MLB teams have used eight or fewer starters, so the A s having used 11 seems like a lot.
Only it s not. Through this weekend, seven teams – the Padres, the Dodgers, the Reds the Pirates, the Braves, the Marlins and the Angels – have all used at least 12 starting pitchers. Three more teams – the Rangers, the Mariners and the White Sox – have matched the A s by using 11 starters.
It turns out that seeing all the ebb-and-flow in the rotation up close in Oakland has obscured the fact that teams in both leagues, teams trolling at the bottom and teams in serious post-season contention, have gone to the well as much or more than the A s. Oakland is only in the middle of the pack, hard as that is to believe.
There is a caveat. The A s need starting pitchers for games Wednesday and Thursday against the Orioles. And while it is possible they will recycle pitchers who have been here before, it s more likely Oakland will bring up two rookies who haven t been with the A s before, Jharel Cotton and Raul Alcantara, to fill those openings.
So by the time the weekend rolls around, the A s could be in more rarified air having used 12 or even 13 different starting pitchers. Even so, they ve got a ways to go to catch the Braves and Reds, both of whom have already used 14 different starters and probably aren t going to stop there.
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