So at the 1⁄4 mark, the A’s are plodding along at 19-22 but showing signs of life following the road trip from h-e-double-hockey-sticks. They’re only 1 game off last year’s pace at this time with a history of magical second halves as often as not, and following three walk-off wins in 4 days they might be feeling a bit emboldened.
However, part of what got the A’s under water was reliance on that most elusive of things: “internal metrics” that, loosely translated, stands for “Well on the surface this looks stupid but we have secret sauce that tells us otherwise.