Baseball’s chicken-and-egg question — do players thrive because they get consistent playing time or do they get consistent playing time because they’re thriving? — has a perfect case study in A’s first baseman Matt Olson.
Olson homered in each of the final three games of the Baltimore series over the weekend. That meant if the rookie had gone deep in all three games of the Kansas City series that began Monday night, his streak of games with a homer would have equaled the number of stints he has had with the A’s this season: six.
Olson, 23, has accepted his fate of yo-yoing between Oakland and Triple-A Nashville.