A's Trevor May Notches 20th Save, Joe Boyle Earns 1st MLB Win
Trevor May's dad always told him "it's not how you start, it's how you finish." While it took escaping two bases loaded jams on Saturday, May earned his 20th save of the season. The first pickle he found himself in he inherited in the eighth inning with two outs. The second, in the top of the ninth after a walk, an error and a single before the closer slammed the door with two strikeouts.
May earned his first career save on September 23, 2018, also at the Coliseum. Besides history repeating itself, Saturday was also May's birthday, and he just had a feeling he was going to pick up a save when the day started. The veteran had 12 career saves coming into the season and had never collected more than four in a single campaign.
When May went on the IL with issues related to anxiety, he held a 12.00 ERA in six innings pitched. Following the A's 4-1 win over the Detroit Tigers, his ERA is down to 3.43 on the year, and he's had just one month where his ERA was above 3.00 since his return, back in June when he allowed four runs in 9 2/3 innings leading to a 3.73.
In 7 2/3 September innings, May has yet to allow a single run. You have to go all the way back to August 13th in Washington when he allowed three runs. He was on a month-long scoreless streak at that point too, giving up a run to the Minnesota Twins on July 15th. To say he's finishing strong would be an understatement.
Starting from July 18th, his first appearance after allowing that run against the Twins, he has totaled 21 innings, given up 15 hits, three runs, walked nine, and struck out 18. That's good for a 1.29 ERA, which is just outside of the top ten among relievers in that span.
Interestingly, Sam Moll, whom the A's traded ahead of the deadline, is one of those relievers ahead of May in ERA, boasting a 1.13 in that same span. The player the A's acquired in exchange for the lefty, Joe Boyle, started the game for the Oakland on Saturday and earned his first big-league win, going six scoreless innings, allowing five hits, one walk, and striking out five.
In nine innings with the A's the 6-foot-7 right-hander has yet to allow an earned run, striking out nine and walking three. When he came over from the Reds, the word on Boyle was that he had a big arm, but walks had been a little bit of an issue.
When asked if he's made any adjustments to keep the walk totals down since switching organizations, Boyle said, "It's never one thing, you know? I feel like it's just a matter of throwing more, getting more reps, building a process, sticking to it, trusting it. That was probably the biggest thing that helped me slowly, gradually, lower those walk numbers and be in the zone consistently."
What's most impressive is that the righty is having success at the big-league level over a full start while really only utilizing two pitches, his four-seamer and his slider. Granted, the fastball sits 95-99, but velocity doesn't blow hitters away these days as much as it used to. His slider, which he threw 35% of the time, generated more swings and misses (6) than his heater (5), even though he used the four-seam 60% of the time.
After tossing seven curveballs and a cutter in his first outing against the Padres, Boyle dropped the cutter despite the longer outing, and even scaled back to five curveballs among his 94 pitches. A's pitching has seemed focused on using sliders more often than usual against Detroit over their past two games.
In the postgame interview, manager Mark Kotsay mentioned that the lefties saw Boyle a little better on Saturday, adding "I think there's a change-up in his future."