Khris Davis made a little tweak with his hands, moving them up a bit to help him get to the ball quicker. That he was slow to the heater exacerbated Davis’ sluggish start to the 2020 season, despite looking mechanically locked in.
That tweak led to results, Davis hit his first home run of the season in the A’s 11-1 win over the Seattle Mariners on Monday night.
“He’s getting to the ball quicker,” manager Bob Melvin said. “It actually looked to me like he’s getting the barrel of the bat out quicker.”
“You could tell he looked comfortable in the box today.”
The home run was Davis-esque; he pulled a two-strike hanging curveball into his team’s bullpen, almost as an indirect invitation for us to see his teammates’ elation, support and relief. The bullpen jumped up with their arms in the air.
“It was funny, in BP today he said he was going to go off, and he sure did” Stephen Piscotty said. “You know, we’ve been seeing it. He’s working really hard, putting the time in and that was nice to see.”
Davis also had a single on a soft chopper that escaped third baseman Kyle Seager’s bare-handed attempt. He drew a walk, too.
The A’s are 6-4 and took three-of-four from the Mariners. Here are some takeaways.
Ramón Laureano can’t be stopped
Yes, the A’s scored eight runs in one inning. After knocking left-handed starter Justus Sheffield out with two outs against them, Oakland strung together seven hits against Bryan Shaw and batted around to put the game out of reach. In one inning the A’s offense executed consistency up-and-down the lineup they’d been striving for.
It was jarring because the bats warming to this new season has felt particularly slow given the season’s urgency, but Ramón Laureano came into the season on Day 1 firing on all cylinders.
In Monday’s win, he collected two hits, two RBI and a walk. His bases-loaded two-run single ignited the A’s eight-run, two-out fifth inning.
Sunday, he hit a three-run home run laser — plating all the runs they’d score. In the 31 at bats heading into Monday’s game, Laureano led the team in OPS (.964), average (.325), RBI (9), runs (8) and SLG (.551) with a .419 OBP.
Remember, the Houston Astros traded him to Oakland in an under-the-radar de-cluttering transaction in 2017, but Laureano’s value has only grown exponentially in his few seasons. He has the kind of power that almost doesn’t seem possible given his short stature and shorter swing. He hits the ball hard, but doesn’t have exit velocities or barrel percentages that rival the game’s best. His growth is individual.
His launch angle has gone up from 10.3 percent in 2018 to 16.3 percent this year. That might’ve amplified the power in his stroke. He has two home runs this season, and it’s looking like he can compete for most on the team and come even more to the forefront of the A’s offensive picture.
Mark Canha is quietly leading the way, too
Canha always seems to be on base, sneaking into place to set the table for some of the A’s biggest runs thus far.
He isn’t far behind Laureano, statistically. Heading into Monday’s game, he was slashing .296/.459/.481 with a .941 OPS — his .459 OBP leads the team.
His approach has been measured as always. He took a hanging breaking ball the opposite way for an RBI single Tuesday, he also drew his seventh and eighth walks of the season. His 13.5 walk rate and .386 weighted on base percentage were among the best in baseball in 2019. In this small 2020 sample, Canha has a 15.6 walk rate and a .398 weighted on base percentage.
Frankie Montas has sterling start
Montas wasn’t using his splitter much in his first two starts. Asked Sunday how he was feeling with it, Montas said he hoped to integrate it more later into games.
“He was playing possum with you guys,” manager Bob Melvin said the next day, adding that that was Montas’ cheeky way of, perhaps, manipulating the scouting report on him.
Montas’ disappearing splitter was a frequent guest against the Mariners in his third start of the year — four of his nine strikeouts came via the splitter.
“Really good splitters early in the game,” Melvin laughed. “He’s like a locomotive, once he gets going, it seems like he gets better and his velocity starts picking up even more.”
Montas finished the night in first-half-2019 fashion: seven innings, four hits, one earned run, four walks along with a flurry of strikeouts.
