The A's Home vs. Road Splits Aren't What You'd Expect

The A's last road trip was more or less a disaster. After blowing out the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first game of the trip, they proceeded to lose the next five, dropping their road record from one of the best in baseball to 14-12 overall. They're still above the .500 mark, but they don't quite stand out like they once did.

At home, the A's are now 8-14 following their loss to the Los Angeles Angels on Monday night, and in order for this club to reach their goal of playing meaningful games in September, they're going to have to pick it up when they play in West Sacramento.

We thought now would be a good time to broadly examine the team's home and road splits a bit. While it's still fairly early in the season, we may be able to pick up on some trends early on that have been leading to the better play away from Sutter Health.

First off, the A's pitching just hasn't been great overall, ranking No. 26 in MLB with a 5.10 staff ERA. That puts a lot of pressure on the offense to score each and every game, and when they slump a little bit, the team goes on a six-game (and counting) losing streak.

That said, the overall ERA is a little misleading. While it's high, the team's game-to-game performance has been better than giving up five runs per contest. They have just lost ten games this season by eight or more runs, and those will really balloon the staff's ERA as a whole.

In some of those games, manager Mark Kotsay is using an ineffective arm that night to preserve the key arms in the bullpen. In others, he's using the backup catcher, Jhonny Pereda. All of those runs allowed get folded into the final total, but that's our starting point for examining the splits.

On the road, the A's rank No. 20 in ERA with a 4.53 ERA, and at home they rank No. 28 with a 5.73. So yes, Sutter Health Park has been more hitter friendly than other parks.

But the A's have one of the better offenses in baseball, so shouldn't their offensive production also increase at a similar clip? Overall, the A's offense ranks No. 15 in runs scored this season (202), and they rank No. 9 in home runs with 58.

At home, they've actually struggled more, which seems counterintuitive given the run-scoring environment it seems to be for opposing clubs. Just 22 of the A's home runs have come at home, 19th-most in MLB, while they have scored 92 runs in Sacramento, which ranks them 23rd. If memory serves, the Chicago Cubs scored nearly as many runs in that opening series at Sutter Health, too.

On the road, the A's home run total shoots up to 36 (ranked No. 3 on the road) and they have scored a total of 110 runs on the road, good for No. 14 in the game. While the total figures look bad, on a per-game basis, the team is scoring nearly as many runs per game with 4.18/game at home, and 4.23/game on the road.

The home runs are certainly getting hit at a higher rate, one per game at home compared to 1.63 per game on the road, but the wind in Sacramento may have something to do with that. There were a couple of balls hit on Monday night that just died at the warning track, with Nick Kurtz (100.1 mph exit velo) and Seth Brown (100.5) smacking balls to the wall that would have been out in at least a few other parks.

The glaring example for the difference between home and road splits is Luis Severino, who has been the American League Cy Young on the road, posting a 0.72 ERA in four starts, compared to a 6.75 ERA at home in six starts. If he's able to find some kind of middle ground, then the A's may be in business.

There is a chance that the A's biggest flaw when playing at home isn't the wind, but their lack of speed overall. Watching opposing teams continuously score from first on a ball in the gap and seemingly getting that extra base time and again, the A's could use more speed on their roster. They currently rank No. 29 in team sprint speed, ahead of just the Minnesota Twins.

As we mentioned a couple of days ago, the A's have some issues to address in order to improve the roster. Pitching would be the first area to consider, followed by the team's lackluster defense, and perhaps adding some guys with wheels.

While Max Schuemann has been used as the typical pinch-runner on the club late in games, he's actually the second-fastest player on the roster. With Esteury Ruiz now in the Los Angeles Dodgers system, catcher Shea Langeliers has returned to being the fastest player on the A's in 2025 at 28.2 feet per second.