Generation A's

Sporting News, The, August 23, 1999 by Michael Knisley

The Blue Jays found out the hard way that the new-look A's are serious playoff contenders

Around the rest of baseball, these are the dog days of August, which is a darn strange rime to be breaking in a new team and sending it on the road. It's hot It's dry. The season is old and stale and still so far from the finish line that it's smoldering in places such as Los Angeles, Baltimore and Kansas City. And yet, here are the freshly minted A's, so brand-spanking new we may as well call them the 31st major league team, bringing a breezy September intensity to this stifling August heat

Forget next month. The schedule doesn't lie. For the Generation A's, the wild-card race is right now. They ran the first critical leg of it successfully in Toronto last weekend, sweeping the Blue Jays, which sent them into Boston for another crucial series early this week with a nothin'-can-stop-us-now approach and a momentum that smacks of kismet.

"Their attitude is different now," says Yankees center fielder Bernie Williams, who noticed it in Oakland last week as New York needed a late rally last Wednesday to escape with two wins in a three-game series. "They seem to be fearless. They don't get intimidated."

Whatever fears they may have had of the road, where Oakland was 20-34 before last weekend, apparently were vanquished in Toronto. And when the A's play at home--which they'll do this weekend in another key series against the Blue Jays, followed by a two-game set against the Indians--they have a better record (41-19) than any home team in baseball.

"The team feels great about itself," Oakland general manager Billy Beane says. "We haven't played great away from home, but I think there has been such an influx of new players that we've got a clean slate going into these next road trips. If we can get out of August in a similar position, we'll be in great shape in September. I don't think the hill is as steep in September."

The "clean slate" comes in the forms of starters Kevin Appier and Omar Olivares, middle relievers Jason Isringhausen and Greg McMichael and second baseman Randy Velarde, all of whom joined Oakland at the end of July. Nobody represents the new-look A's better than Appier, who was stagnating with the rest of the Royals in Kansas City until Beane pried him away at the trade deadline.

Appier may no longer have the devastating split-finger fastball and change-of-speed command that made him one of the best American League pitchers in the '90s, but he is exactly what Oakland needs: a veteran No. 1 presence in the rotation. In his first two starts for the A's, he went 2-0 with a 1.20 ERA. Against the Blue Jays last Friday, he wasn't quite as sharp, but he picked up his third win with 5 2/3 innings of work in a 9-8 A's victory.

"I've never seen this spark in his eye before," says Mike Macfarlane, Oakland's backup catcher who played with Appier in Kansas City for eight-plus seasons. "He has come alive with this change of scenery."

Around baseball, Appier is making general managers who rejected him as a trade possibility rue their concern about last year's shoulder injury and his history of dead arm late in the season. The Rangers' Doug Melvin, for example, scouted him for three months before he finally turned his back on a deal.

"I wonder if I failed to take into account (the effect of) Appier being re-energized by leaving Kansas City and going to a team playing for something," Melvin told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The Rangers spent last week in their own dog-days funk, dropping four in a row before defeating the White Sox last Sunday and opening the door for an Oakland run at something even better than the wild-card berth. As this week began, the A's trailed Texas by only 4 1/2 games in the A.L. West

With Appier as anchor, Oakland's rotation suddenly looks as solid and secure as anything the A's will face in September, and that includes the Rangers' starters. Olivares was 2-0 with a 2.45 ERA in his first three starts since coming from Anaheim. In beating the Blue Jays on Saturday, Tim Hudson improved to 7-1. According to Beane, the only thing standing between Hudson and a role as the team's No. 1 starter is his rookie status. Going into this week, the fourth starter, Gil Heredia, hadn't lost in more than two months (June 10), and he produced six victories in that span.

Once they get through the next two weeks (Toronto this weekend, Cleveland next week and the Yankees again on the road for four games at the end of August and start of September) and adjust to the loss of Tony Phillips, the hill becomes less imposing. Other than two home games against the Red Sox and a three-game series in Texas on the next-to-last weekend, Oakland doesn't play a team after September 2 that has a record over .500-Tigers, Devil Rays, Orioles, Royals, Twins, Angels and Mariners.

Which means the Blue Jays, Red Sox and even the Rangers are feeling the heat

Michael Knisley is a senior writer for THE SPORTING NEWS. This story contains material from TSN correspondent Susan Slusser, as well as other news organizations.