Elephant Rumblings: The road trip begins

Rise and shine, A’s fans!

Yesterday was a nice day off for the club after playing 13 straight games. The club faces the road losers of the last two games, but has a chance to pick up win No. 63 tonight against a hated division rival. First up on this three-city tour is Houston. We have a three-game series against their AL West opponent who appears to be on their way to another AL West title. We didn’t expect this in May when Houston looked unmotivated and had just lost their best player, Kyle Tucker, to what we now know was a broken leg. Since then, however, they’ve hit their stride and taken over first place, surprising everyone who was hoping this era of Houston dominance might finally be coming to an end. Not yet, I guess.

The Astros still need to get past their AL West rival Seattle, as they only have a 4.5-game lead with about three weeks left to play. Houston is also within striking distance of a first-round bye in the American League, just five wins behind the first-place New York Yankees and four behind the second-place Cleveland Guardians. Remember, the top two division winners get first-round byes, which is incredibly helpful in assembling your preferred pitching rotation. The A’s will face an Astros team with a lot on the line, so the club better be prepared and bring their best in the final series against Houston in 2024.

The pairings for the Houston series are as follows:

Tuesday: Osvaldo Bido vs Spencer Arrighetti

Wednesday: JP Sears vs. Hunter Brown

Thursday: Joey Estes vs. Framber Valdez

After the Houston series concludes, the club will head to Chicago’s South Side for a three-game series against the White Sox. They are arguably having a worse year than the Athletics had last season, currently sitting at a ghastly 33-111, a winning percentage of .229. That would be the worst year in modern baseball history, and they are currently projected to have 122 losses, which would break the Detroit Tigers’ 2003 record of 119 losses in a season. Put another way, the White Sox are one loss away from matching the Athletics’ season losing record from last year, when it was almost unbearable. I don’t think anyone expected the playoffs to be on the South Side at the start of the season, but who would have thought things would go downhill like this for the South Siders?

The club doesn’t have to travel far to complete the penultimate road trip of the 2024 season. In fact, a bus ride should do the trick, as the club will travel to the North Side early next week for a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs aren’t like the Astros or Tigers, who are on opposite ends of the winning spectrum. Chicago is an underdog in the playoff bubble with a 73-70 record as of this writing. The division is likely out of reach, as Milwaukee holds a 9-game lead in the division. The Wild Card is still in play, however, although things are starting to get serious for Chicago. They only need to overtake two teams to sneak into the playoffs, but are 5.5 games behind the Mets for that final spot. How next week goes will say a lot about Chicago’s playoff chances, but by the time the A’s head to Wrigley, they could either be in the thick of it or almost completely out. Either way, they will be facing a Cubs team that has talent in every area.

In short, this away trip will have its challenges, but also some opportunities for easy wins. This is likely to continue for the rest of the season, as there is no particularly obvious difficult period ahead for the Athletics club. But let’s just take it one game at a time.

Happy Tuesday, Athletics Nation!

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