It is no longer "only April." After spending the first month of the season in a dogfight with their division rivals for early season supremacy, the A's have emerged roughly middle of the pack in the West. While the Astros have looked like a team poised to calmly stroll into the playoffs, all the other teams in the division have stumbled out of the starting blocks and beat each other up into first-month-mediocrity.
The A's have learned a few things about themselves in the early going. The team has learned that, regardless of the sky-high abilities of the starting rotation, its youthfulness assures that there will still be growing pains this year as guys are still refining their craft and working on pitch consistency.