COMMENTARY : A’s Show Versatility in Their Vulnerability

Batting leadoff was Lance Blankenship, who needs 927 stolen bases to tie Lou Brock.

Playing left field was Willie Wilson, 35 but feeling 55, down in the dumps with a case of the stomach flu and the .143 shivers.

Starting at third base was Ernest Riles, batting behind Wilson in the lineup but not one percentage point higher.

Stationed at shortstop was Mike Gallego, on leave from second base until Walt Weiss’ right hamstring recuperates.

Those weren’t the Oakland A’s who showed up for the Angels’ home opener Monday night.

Those were the Oakland a’s.

Vulnerable is the adjective attached to this team this April. Beatable. Catchable. And the lineup is just the opening line of evidence. Research and you’ll find a bullpen that excludes Rick Honeycutt (post-op left shoulder) and Gene Nelson (broken finger on right hand), plus a starting rotation that includes Joe Slusarksi and Kirk Dressendorfer.

Already, Sports Illustrated has given up on the A’s, picking them second. That’s right. Behind the Angels. Luis Polonia may or may not read SI--according to the scouts, Luis is a picture man--but after the Angels won for the fifth time in six games, Polonia was seconding and thirding the opinion.

“We can beat anybody in the league,” Polonia proclaimed. “(The A’s) are going to see that we can get them out of the way.”

Then, at 7:19 p.m. Monday, words stopped and action began.

The A’s haven’t gone anywhere yet.

B Team that the A’s might be right now, they still can roll out a few returning lettermen.

Bob Welch. Cy Young ’90 worked eight methodical innings and limited Dave Parker, Dave Winfield and the rest of the Metrodome maulers to a matching set of runs.

Jose Canseco. Bash Brother I bashed another, breaking a 2-2 tie with a three-run bomb in the seventh inning.

Dennis Eckersley. Another day, another inning, another save.

The problem with the A’s is with their image. The prevailing, cursory view is that this team begins and ends with power. Power hitting, power pitching, the powerful legs of Rickey Henderson. When they believe their press, the A’s can be susceptible. (See World Series, 1988 and 1990). But when a spate of injuries comes along to defuse the myth, the true power of the A’s--versatility--comes into focus.

Take away Rickey Henderson and Carney Lansford and the A’s will take what you give them. Monday against Kirk McCaskill, it was a one-run head start.

McCaskill has based an admirable pitching career on the science of avoiding bases on balls, but by the middle of the first inning, he had issued four. Rickey or no, you have to keep the leadoff man off base to beat Oakland. McCaskill couldn’t, walking Blankenship, Dave Henderson and Canseco back-to-back-to-back, which brought pitching coach Marcel Lachemann out to the mound for a house call.

McCaskill settled into a groove for one batter, Harold Baines, whose double-play grounder scored Blankenship. Then it was back to the walkathon, Terry Steinbach joining in, beforea Mark McGwire fly ball ended the inning.

Oakland pieced together another run in the fourth inning--Wilson drove it in with a groundout to second--and waited to see if something big would happen. It came with Canseco, but until then, the A’s kept the Angels at bay by taking away what they could.

Wilson ran down two long flies that could have ignited the bottom of the fourth inning. The Angels had two runners on and no outs when Gary Gaetti drove a liner deep into the left-center field gap. Wilson sprinted over to flag it down. Junior Felix followed with another shot, headed over Wilson’s head. The flu? Wilson flew, reaching up and pulling it in, putting the clamps on an uprising that got only as far as tying the score.

The seventh-inning putaway began with Gallego, the infielder who supposedly can’t hit enough to hold his weight in the starting lineup. Gallego batted .206 last season, .226 for a five-year career. But he singled with one out in the seventh, and when Henderson repeated with two out, McCaskill had to face Canseco at the worst possible time--runners one base and the score tied.

Canseco swings hard for his money. He delivered to win this one the same way he has won many others, but the little guys, the bench guys, helped make it possible.

The pennant race is young, only one week old. But if Oakland is to be hunted down, it is going to have to be earned. The American League West won’t be relinquished simply because too many A’s are hurt.

The A’s simply have too many ways to hurt you.