No, Cindi, I did not leave out the 'r'. I'm talking about eyeline, not eyeliner. No doubt Kendall Graveman and Eric O'Flaherty top the list of A's pitchers who have struggled out of the gate. To my eyes, each is suffering from the same affliction and that is they are ground ball pitchers operating on the (generally accurate) belief that in order to be successful they need to keep the ball down.
However, the art of pitching is not as simple as throwing to the same "right place" over and over. (Exceptions: Mariano Rivera and at times Sean Doolittle so yes, the exception proves the rule.