OAKLAND — The first half of the Oakland Athletics season pretty much can be summed up in two words.
Ryan Dull.
Dull as in the reliever who set a major league record by not allowing any of the first 36 baserunners he inherited to score.
Dull as in the fact that a no-name middle reliever with two wins and one save produced the biggest highlight of the first 89 games of the A’s season.
And dull as in the club’s 51 losses, .252 batting average, 280 walks allowed and 53 errors.
You want excitement? Billy Beane has it on the telephone.
“You can’t control it,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said of the trade speculation that will hover over a collection of players working on their suntans over the All-Star break. “There’s more notoriety to it nowadays because there’s countdowns and clocks and all that sort of thing. You can’t escape it.
“But hopefully if we play better as a team, it won’t be impactful, and we’ll keep our guys together.”
The A’s (38-51) will begin the second half 15 1/2 games behind the American League West-leading Texas Rangers, and 12 games out of the final wild-card playoff spot.
The division deficit is the third largest in franchise history at the traditional midpoint of the season.
Whether Melvin wants to see it or not, the A’s almost assuredly will make more headlines as the trade deadline approaches later this month than when the playoffs approach in October.
If nothing else, the club would like to line up its top five starting pitchers just once before season’s end. Or, more likely, before one gets dealt this summer.
They’re getting close.
With Sean Manaea and Daniel Mengden having been promoted from the minors, and Sonny Gray and Rich Hill back from injuries, the A’s are four-fifths of the way there.
They now await the completion of right-hander Henderson Alvarez’s recovery from shoulder surgery to fill out the straight.
But will that be before Hill probably gets dealt in the next three weeks?
Things never get dull (little “d”) around the A’s.