A’s Are Too Good--for Anybody

OAKLAND, Calif. —  If the Baltimore Orioles’ last weekend in Toronto still has you depressed, cheer up. There is one consolation. The Orioles could be here instead of the Toronto Blue Jays. The Oakland A’s could be crushing their beaks instead.

The Orioles could be watching Rickey Henderson run around and around the bases as though he were on a freeway with no traffic. They could be flailing at the pitches of the best staff in baseball. They could be staring up into the bleachers as yet another home run landed. (Who hit this one? Parker? McGwire? Canseco? Henderson? Which Henderson?)

Maybe the Orioles would have fared better. Who knows? They certainly could not have done worse. The Blue Jays have been embarrassed in the first two games of the American League Championship Series. The East Division could have offered up Detroit and done no worse.

Really, though, it is a moot point. Toronto, Baltimore, Detroit -- these A’s are so good it would not matter who they played. They blend pitching, hitting, defense and speed better than any other team in the majors this decade. They are peaking at the perfect time, the end of the season. And they have what Manager Tony La Russa calls “the chip on our shoulder,” the memory of losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers last year in the World Series.

Unless there is a mighty reversal of form when the teams move to Toronto for the next three games, the series should be over this weekend. Consider: Oakland’s two best starting pitchers have won the first two games, and the team now will start a 19-game winner in Game 3 and a 17-game winner in Game 4.

This is not difficult to figure. The Blue Jays, who deserved to win the East, are outclassed. The Orioles, even in all their ornithologically correct glory, likely would have been, too.

But wait, you protest, the Orioles were in Oakland’s league this season. They won five of 12 games. More than half the 12 were decided by two or fewer runs. True enough. But most of the games were played before July, and it is a mistake to confuse those A’s with these A’s.

Those A’s were undermined by a debilitating run of injuries. Some of their best players -- Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Dennis Eckersley, Bob Welch -- missed weeks, even months. And not until late June, when Rickey Henderson arrived in a trade with the Yankees, were all the parts in place.

Since the All-Star break, the A’s have gradually regained the use of their injured players and annexed the incomparable Henderson into their system. They gained 16 games on .500 in the last nine weeks of the season.

“The past week or two is the best we’ve played all year,” shortstop Walt Weiss said.

“It has been about six weeks now,” La Russa said. “We have played really hard. We’re smelling it.”

The Blue Jays can tell you all about it. They scored first in both games but were swatted away with what almost seemed a flick of the wrist. They have scored fewer than half as many runs (13-6) and have exactly half as many hits (20-10). The A’s have been almost frighteningly balanced on offense, scoring with power and speed. They have hit three home runs, all at important moments, and already set an American League playoff record for stolen bases, with 10. Henderson has reached base six times in eight at-bats, stolen six bases and scored three runs, driving the Jays more than a little nutty.

Henderson’s impact can’t be emphasized enough. He applies such pressure, forces the other team to walk such a fine line. Wednesday, the Jays had a 1-0 lead when he walked to begin the bottom of the fourth. That was all the A’s needed. Henderson stole second, stole third and scored on a Carney Lansford single. Tie game. The A’s won 104 regular-season games last year, but they did not have a player who could score such a run. They are a better team right now than a year ago.

Still, the Jays have contributed to the mismatch. In Game 1, they failed to take advantage of Oakland starter Dave Stewart’s inaccuracy in the early innings. Center fielder Lloyd Moseby missed two catchable balls. Second baseman Nelson Liriano threw away a double-play ball, allowing the winning runs to score. (Henderson didn’t slide that hard.) Wednesday, the Jays left runners at third in the second, fifth and eighth innings.

But again, they are playing the best team of the decade.