The A’s boarded an airplane headed for Baltimore with an 11-game winning streak, and a feeling they just can’t shake.
According to centerfielder Ramón Laureano, at this point, the A’s can start to smell wins coming.
Scott Hatteberg can relate.
“It sounds like witch doctor stuff, but I 100% agree with him,” the former A’s first baseman said in a telephone interview on Thursday night. “Unless you’re there and feeling it, it sounds crazy to say. But it feels very contagious and tangible that the win is inevitable. It’s a sixth sense thing. And it works the other way, I’ve been on teams where you know you’re going to lose.”
He was a key character in the A’s then-AL record 20-game winning streak in 2002. It was his pinch-hit, walk-off home run that was the difference in the record setter.
While Hatteberg is pounding the pavement as a scout and special assistant for the A’s, the retired ballplayer has been keeping a close eye, watching games from his phone on the go. As the A’s win more games, he can’t help but think about the last time he could smell wins coming.
Now the baseball world is following the current generation of A’s who seemingly can’t lose. The A’s open a seven-game trip today against the Orioles (they also will visit playoff nemesis Tampa Bay before they return home) without a loss since April 8.
Win No. 11 on Wednesday was a finish the 2002 squad would be proud of: an extra-inning, walk-off victory over the Minnesota Twins that propelled this squad into sole possession of first place in the AL West.
Script-flipping win streaks are no foreign concept to this organization. This is the franchise’s ninth win streak of 10 or more games since it arrived in Oakland in 1968. This core is also responsible for baseball’s last streak of 10 or more wins — 11 in a row in May of 2019.
Could a run at 20 be in the cards? Few imagined that was possible in 2002 either until that magical run from Aug. 13-Sept. 4.
Hatteberg said one of the secrets to the 2002 team’s run, famously chronicled in the movie “Moneyball”, was being blissfully ignorant of what was going on. It wasn’t until media members asked them about winning 16 straight that most of the players had an idea of the magnitude a long win streak held.
“If you asked any of us that, how many we’d won in a row, no one could venture a guess,” Hatteberg recalls. “No one really knew what the streak was, we just knew we were playing really well. And I was a veteran and not even the young guys knew.”
Then the Oakland Coliseum started to fill to the brim to watch history.
All of 55,000 eyes were watching Hatteberg launch that 1-0 pitch off Royals closer Jason Grimsley that Sept. 4 night. Just an hour earlier, when the A’s had a 11-0 lead, Hatteberg had kicked his feet up with a cup of coffee ready to celebrate history until he realized he was watching his team give up the comfy lead in real time.
“That final game, I thought we had it in the bag,” he said. “To hear the elation turn to the groans and moans, it was depressing and you felt like this thing was falling through your fingertips. Next thing I know I’m in the batting cage having to face Darth Vader Jason Grimsley and his 98mph bowling ball sinker, so it felt like an impossible at-bat. For me to say I want to hit one out, it wasn’t the case.
“That at-bat was not a pressure at-bat because I just wanted to get on base. Double, get on, get in scoring position. Hitting a home run was farthest thing from my mind.”
When winning is in the air, humble attempts to get a ball in the air turn into history-making home runs. In both seasons, there were stretches where the opposite was true.
Both sets of streaking A’s overcame slow starts in seasons that began with high expectations: This season, it was an 0-6 start that was the franchise’s worst in more than a century; the 2002 team won its first three games of the season, but a May swoon at one point left them six games under .500 and in last place in the West, 10 games out of first. (They didn’t get back into first place until the midway point of the streak, and went on to win the West by four games.)
“The good teams come out of it,” Hatteberg said. “I remember those struggles. I remember Sports Illustrated came to us to write about us as a young and cool team ready to kick everyone’s ass and we didn’t. And they scrapped the story and we thought, ‘We gotta kick ourselves up.’”
Both groups returned a core of young players, but had holes to fill following high-profile departures. The 2002 team lost Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi and closer Jason Isringhausen, The 2021 team lost Marcus Semien, Khris Davis and closer Liam Hendriks.
The streaks also included some favorable matchups. The 2021 team started this streak against the Houston Astros — who pinned five losses on the A’s in the season’s first two weeks — and gained momentum against the bottom-feeding Tigers and scuffling Twins. In 2002, the only team the A’s faced that would finish the season with a record above .500 were the Twins. Two teams they faced — the Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers — finished with 100 losses.
Both streaks have been powered primarily by two components — strong starting pitching and home runs. In 2002, the A’s hit home runs in 18 of the 20 games. Matt Olson (six) and Seth Brown (three) have been smashing home runs in this one. Pitching-wise, these A’s have thrown shutouts in four of the 11 wins; starting pitchers went a combined 15-0 in 2002.
The 2002 team had two shutouts total, and none came from the Big Three: Barry Zito, Tim Hudson or Mark Mulder. Both came from fourth starter Cory Lidle. Closer Billy Koch had nine saves and three wins during the streak. His only blown save came in the 20th game, but he was credited with the win when Hatteberg homered.
The starting staff was the most overshadowed element to the team’s success over those 20 games, Hatteberg said.
“The Big Three is huge, but Cory Lidle was so good for us that year,” he said. “The three were some of the best pitchers in all of the game. But to have a No. 4 guy like Cory Lidle, he was extremely good.”
And finally, most of the games then — and now — have been lopsided. There have been two walk off wins during this streak — both ended on opponents’ fielding errors — and the 2002 team ended its streak with three straight — two walk off hits by eventual MVP Miguel Tejada and then, of course, Hatteberg’s blast. But the A’s have out-scored their opponents 71-33 during this streak; the 2002 team never trailed in 14 of the 20 wins.
“I felt momentum, the longer we played and the closer we got, it was on our side,” Hatteberg said. “I remember the one walk-off Tejada hit up the middle, you just felt like he was going to do it. When you see guys every day for eight months or more, you can see it in their eyes. The confidence, the desire was always there, but you knew they wanted to do it and were going to do it.”
In a sense, Olson has become the 2002 Tejada at the plate. After sitting out a few games with minor injuries, Olson is 14-for-36 with a multi-home run game and 14 RBI in 10 games. Tejada had a hit in 16 of the 20 games and drove in 18 runs. He hit a walk-off home run for win No. 18 and a walk-off single for win No. 19.
Jed Lowrie has filled the role David Justice played in 2002: a steadying veteran presence who is tearing it up at the plate. Lowrie, 37, is 14-for-38 with 12 RBI and stayed steady during the rough start. Justice, who was in his final big league season at age 36, had a hit in 14 of the 20 wins.
This month, as was the case nearly 19 years ago, a win streak requires nearly every guy on the roster to have their moment.
“Sounds hokey, but I felt like no matter who was up, or a pitcher, I knew someone was going to make a great play,” Hatteberg said. “Someone is going to come through. (Eric) Chavez came through, Tejada came through. Terrence Long hit a home run. Someone was coming through every night. Winning wasn’t about getting through the lineup to the hot three or four hitter guy in the lineup. Everyone was involved.”
