Sunshine and thrills return to Arizona spring training

MESA, Ariz. — This was more like it. Sunshine, a great leaping catch, excellent pitching, and nearly 2,000 extremely partisan and extremely noisy fans.

True, there was only one run scored — and it wasn’t by the A’s — but let’s not get too picky.

Maybe the change had something to do with the arrival of Daylight Savings Time, not that here in Arizona the idea would ever have a chance of going into effect. Or maybe it’s the undeniable fact that the baseball regular season is only two weeks away.

Whatever, on Sunday in a Chicago White Sox 1-0 win over the A’s (Matt Reynolds led off the eighth with a home run) there was a complete difference in atmosphere, attendance and weather compared with 24 hours earlier and 10 miles away at Saturday’s Giants-Indians game in Scottsdale.

Suddenly it felt like spring training. Suddenly it felt like we should care once more.

Every city in the desert, Phoenix, Tempe, Goodyear, Scottsdale, has different policies regarding the response to Covid-19. And yes, Hohokam Stadium is marginally larger than Scottsdale Stadium.

And yes, A’s fans are more vocal than Giants fans, who the late Robin Williams — seen occasionally at what now is Oracle Park — said paid more attention to what was on their cell phones than what was on the ball field.

An announcement from A’s headquarters in Oakland on Sunday morning said the franchise would accept payment for season-ticket suites in Bitcoin. By late afternoon, the only thing A’s fans were willing to buy was a run.

Oakland was limited to two hits, a single in the second by Stephen Piscotty and then finally another single in the eighth by Tyler Soderstrom, the No. 1 draft pick last year.

Hard to win a game when you don’t score, but Oakland manager Bob Melvin was more excited by the positive — the performance of starter Frankie Montas — than the negative.

He and everyone else were thrilled by the way the A’s Buddy Reed soared above the center field fence in the fourth to steal an apparent home run from the American League MVP, Jose Abreu.

There’s an advertising sign at Hohokam just to the right of center, white on blue, that reads,”Baseballism, bet you can’t say it five times fast.”  Especially wearing the mask that is mandatory. You can’t even get on the elevator to the press box without a face covering.

What the A’s haven’t been able to do is get deep into the postseason. A full complement of healthy pitchers may be the step needed to get them there. So what Frankie Montas did Sunday on the mound arguably was more significant than what Oakland batters couldn’t do at the plate.

Montas had a late beginning to spring training because he had been stricken with Covid-19. Although not ready for camp until a week ago, he pitched well Sunday in his first start, shutting out the White Sox for three innings — that’s quite a distance when you haven’t pitched. He struck out two, including Abreu, and reached 99 mph with his sinker.

What sunk the A’s in the exhibition on Sunday, of course, is that their batters were even less effective against Chicago than Chicago batters were against Montas.

Still, you win or lose on pitching, say the experts — hey, didn’t the Yankees pay $324 million to Gerrit Cole? — so the pennant race in effect is an arms race. The more the better.

Said Melvin, “Velo was there,” alluding to Montas’ velocity, “breaking stuff was there. After a slow start getting here, it was nice to see.”

So was a game in the sunshine and with just enough boisterous A’s fans to remind us of spring training as we once knew it.