A 2-4 Start, but not all bad

If there’s a mantra for the Oakland A’s 2023 season it has to be ‘look past the wins and losses’.

We’re not going to be a competitive team this season; avoiding another plummet into triple-digit losses will be an improvement over 2022. What matters is seeing some positive development and there were signs of that in the opening home-stand against the Angels and Guardians.

Striking out but hitting it hard

The Ramón Laureano we know and love may be on his way back. He’s still striking out at an unnerving clip (9 K’s in 6 games), but he’s hitting the ball hard when he does make contact after struggling with injuries last season. Although he’s never going to be a particularly patient hitter, if he can hone the approach at the plate, as he has in the past, then a return to his electric form of 2019 is possible.

It’s a somewhat similar story with Ryan Noda, our Rule 5 pick from the Dodgers. He struck out 26 times in 25 Spring Training games and has carried that on with eight strike-outs in the opening six regular season games; however, like Ramón, he is hitting the ball hard and bashed his first Big League home run on Wednesday. Noda is also much more agile and fleet-footed than his big frame might suggest and the early signs are good that he’ll do enough to stay on the roster all season.

Do Like Aggie Does!

If they want an example to learn from, they could do worse than take a look at Jesús Aguilar. His 12-pitch at-bat on Wednesday that led to him smashing a three-run homer was an absolute masterclass in battling against a tough relief pitcher to get to a pitch you can do real damage with.

One of the reasons the A’s Front Office brought in Aguilar is to provide some veteran leadership to the clubhouse. Glen Kuiper and Dallas Braden on the NBCSC coverage picked up on a perfect example of that when Aguilar embraced Noda after the latter’s home run. The two players will be competing for playing time at first base this season, but that didn’t get in the way of the veteran wanting the rookie to succeed.

I have a feeling Aguilar is quickly going to become a favourite not just of the A’s fans, but also his new team mates.

East Coast Road Trip

The A’s have a tough road-trip ahead with three games against the 6-0 Tampa Bay Rays and then four games against a Baltimore Orioles team containing some excellent young talent.

From a UK-based fan perspective, the week will put to the test a potential benefit of the newly-quickened pace of MLB games.

Tonight’s game at the Trop and then the three night-games in Baltimore will all begin at 23:35 BST. With games now lasting approximately 2 and a half hours, and some closer to 2 hours, those East Coast night-games become more manageable to potentially watch live and still get a good five hours of sleep afterwards.

Even if watching those games live is not practical for you, we’ve already seen this week how the quicker pace makes catching up on the games the following morning much easier. You normally have to wait 90 minutes or so after the game has been completed before the archived version is available to watch on MLB.TV, so even night-games on the West Coast were often available by around 6.30 a.m.

A’s Minor League games available too

Minor League games are now included in the MLB.TV subscription, so we can watch the A’s affiliate teams as well. The slight exception currently is that Stockton Ports, our Low-A team, don’t have TV coverage of their home games. Only their road games are available to watch at present, although radio coverage is still available with friend of A’s UK Alex Jensen calling the action.

Typically only games on Sunday are played during the afternoon locally, with occasional early starts on a Saturday, so those will be the ones we can catch live at a convenient time in the UK. This will make for some perfect Sunday baseball-filled evenings.

Here’s the full A’s-plus-affiliates TV guide for the weekend:

Saturday

Lansing Lugnuts (High-A) playing against Great Lakes from 10.05am PDT, 18:05 BST

A’s at Rays 1:10pm PDT, 21:10 BST

Sunday

Lansing playing against Great Lakes from 10.05am PDT, 18:05 BST

A’s at Rays 10.10am PDT, 18:10 BST

Vegas (Triple-A) hosting Oklahoma at 12.05pm PDT, 20:05 BST.

A’s UK Live Streams

And finally, the plan for the 2023 season is to do at least two live streams per week, simulcasting on our YouTube channel and Twitter account.

The Monday Review will broadcast at 20:30 UK, so 12.30 midday lunchtime in the Bay Area. We’ll look back at the weekend series just gone and then preview the week ahead.

We’ll then do a live-stream for the mid-week day-game, either a preview show if it’s on the West Coast (usually starting the broadcast at 20:00 UK, 12 pm PDT) or a review show if it’s on the East Coast or Central time.

We’ll be throwing in some “Bed and Breakfast” live streams too over the season, when we’ll be live for a breakfast catch-up UK time (7 a.m.) that makes for a bed-time (11 p.m.) stream in the Bay Area.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven’t done so already and click the notification bell so you receive a reminder every time we go live. Head there now to watch back the first two live-streams of the season.