Lowell Cohn: For Giants and A’s, success begins with the lineup

Name the starting lineup for the Giants.

Easy-peasy.

Name the starting lineup for the Oakland A’s.

Not so easy-peasy. Kind of hard.

I’m thinking Giants-A’s because they’re playing each other. Sure, I know the Giants’ starting lineup is a little different these days because of injury. In general, it is consistent, continuous and remains the same week by week, month by month, season by season.

The A’s? You got me.

This is a column about virtue. About the virtue of having a set lineup - of investing in a set lineup. A column about the Giants being virtuous and the A’s lacking in baseball virtue.

The A’s have excuses galore. Crummy ballpark. Small-market team. Everything you already know. Not my problem. Not your problem. If the A’s owners can’t field a good, consistent lineup, let them sell the team. Get someone competent and committed.

When I cover a Giants game or watch on TV, I know Brandon Crawford will play shortstop. When you pay money and go to a Giants game, you know Crawford will play shortstop. Brandon Belt will play first base. You count on it. You identify with the players - you’re a fan - and you want to see Crawford and Belt as much as the Giants in general.

With the A’s, it’s always the A’s in general. Certainly not specific players. Anyone could be gone the next day. Anyone could be playing today. If the A’s face a lefty pitcher, they field the right-handed-hitting lineup. And vice versa. You might get to see Stephen Vogt. Then again, you might not. Too bad for you.

With the Giants, Crawford and Belt, left-handed hitters, play against lefty pitchers. God love the Giants. Consistent. Committed. Virtuous.

The Giants are a throwback team. Throwback to a golden age. My childhood coincided with a golden age and I lived in Brooklyn and took the subway to Ebbets Field and knew the Duke would be in center and Gil Hodges played first and Jackie would play second and, later on, third.

That was reality. Great reality.

The Giants are like that, have a great reality. Joe Panik plays second base. Buster Posey catches. The A’s lack reality - the kind of reality that matters. They platoon their players. Put theory over practice. Don’t always let the good players play.

And they get rid of good players. Sinful that Josh Donaldson trade. Because this is a column about virtue, I say the Giants rarely commit sins - cardinal or any other kind. The A’s are downright sinful.

The Giants love their players. The A’s do not love their players - present or past. Moveable pieces - not people. Here today. Gone tomorrow. Integers.

The Giants make player moves that matter. Before this season, they got Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija and Denard Span - and were able to move Angel Pagan to left where he’s better. These were top-of-the-roster player acquisitions, team-changing moves. The Giants got elite players. The Giants are having a great season.

The A’s almost never get top-of-the-roster players. They acquire the 25th man. I’m always getting these A’s emails telling me they picked up some guy I never heard of and don’t need to know about to fill the 25th spot. OK, maybe the 24th spot. Never a team-changer. Never an impact player. A guy. Just a guy. The A’s are not having a great season.

And there’s this. Call it trust. It’s the primary virtue of a set lineup, if the lineup is good. Giants players trust each other. A’s players don’t know each other well enough for trust.

What is Cohn going on about?

You see the matter of trust in the postseason. The Giants do well in the postseason. You’ve noticed. The A’s always flop. Even when the A’s have good players, they flop.

Trust.

Madison Bumgarner is pitching and a batter hits a screaming grounder to Crawford’s right. Bumgarner knows Crawford will run to the ball, catch the ball with his wonderful glove and hands, set his feet and throw out the batter at first. Crawford has a gun.

Bumgarner knows on a double-play ball, Crawford and Panik will perform perfectly because they have made this play thousands of times. They trust each other and Bumgarner trusts them and Bruce Bochy trusts them and the Giants trust each other. Trust helped them win three World Series.

The A’s don’t trust each other. Can’t trust each other. Haven’t played together enough. Are not part of each others’ DNA. No fault of the players who try hard. Fault of Billy Beane who believes chemistry between players is a phony concept. Who has no idea of trust and its value.

Beane always says the postseason is a crapshoot. He believes that. He’s wrong. It’s not a crapshoot on a team with a set starting lineup, a team that developed trust over the years on long trips to Philly and New York and Chicago, trips in the hot sweaty days of August when it’s just you and 24 other guys hitting and catching balls.

The Giants play brilliantly in the postseason when things are the hardest because they trust each other and they’ve earned that trust. The Giants believe in the guy behind the plate because he’s given them reason to believe and feel confident and feel trust.

On a baseball field, trust is beautiful. Ditto for virtue.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.