Bob Melvin on Josh Reddick wearing a Spiderman Costume: “There’s always a line. We’re not the only team that celebrates.”

The Oakland Athletics have been one of the biggest surprises in Major League Baseball this season. The A’s have a league-leading 13 walk-off wins. In fact, the latest walk-off win stirred up a bit of controversy after Josh Reddick elected to pie Coco Crisp in the face while wearing a Spiderman costume.

Bob Melvin couldn’t be prouder of his club’s effort this season. The Athletics manager embraces all the fun his team has enjoyed after each walk-off win as this small market franchise continues to overachieve given the payroll difficulties they face each year. Oakland comes into play this week tied for the AL Wild Card.

Bob Melvin joined 95.7 The Game in San Francisco with The Rise Guys to discuss the Oakland Athletics upcoming schedule against the Angels and Tigers, the Athletics playing to win the AL West, the difficulty of trading Kurt Suzuki, and Josh Reddick pieing Coco Crisp in the face while wearing a Spiderman costume over the weekend.

What are your thoughts on the week ahead against the Angels and White Sox? Can you grind out some more tough games?

“Well really not just this week, but look at who we played this month. It feels like every team we played the last month we are having the same conversation and rightly so. We do have a divisional foe here in the Angels. They’ve come a long way from a slow start. They got a powerhouse team and they added some guys here recently, so a very good team. We have to play well to beat them and the White Sox are in first place like you said, so I don’t think is any easy series these days with the American League being as close as it is. It seems like every team in the American League is a good team. You are going to have a lot of battles. We are going to lean on our pitching like we have all year. We are first in the league in pitching for a reason and they’ve been the force that has kept us for the most part where we are. Our offense has been better here over the last month and a half, obviously with the numbers of wins we have, but the pitching we have has been consistent the whole year.”

Do you look more at the American League West at this point or do you even pay attention to the Wild Card right now?

“Well you hear about it a lot. I don’t think we pay much attention to it. We are just trying to win as many games as we can and I think clarity comes more in September when the finish line is fairly close. Then you are kind of looking at the scoreboard every night to see who is where. It’s difficult to not look at the scoreboard especially in some of these ballparks that tell you where the base runners are who’s pitching and everything else. It’s like watching a game on TV in some of the ballparks, but I think our focus has to be on the particular game. We don’t need the distractions of all of a sudden we’re in a playoff race and were are ‘x’ amount of games of this and that. I think you always want to look art your division and win the division first and foremost and then you deal with the other ones later.”

How hard was it to part ways with Kurt Suzuki?

“It was. It was difficult. He’s a tremendous person on top of being a guy that was very well respected in this clubhouse here. It was difficult for Billy Beane to make that move, but you have to take a look at now and the future. Derek Norris was getting more of the playing time now. George Kottaras was brought in to be a left-handed bat to back up or not necessarily platoon. He’ll be a nice backup for Derek down the road and it came up pretty quickly. I think it was a great landing spot for Kurt Suzuki too because he’s with a first place team and he’s got a chance to go to the playoffs now in the National League. We wish him the best. He’s one of the great guys I have ever been around in the game, not only as a person and in the clubhouse it was difficult.”

Is it going over the top with having Josh Reddick pie Coco Crisp in the face while wearing a Spiderman costume?

“Well there’s always a line. I understand that and we’re not the only team that celebrates. We’ve had so many of them [walk-off wins] this season and I think the timing of it with the catch that he made in Toronto and a lot was made of that because it was a big joke and he had a spiderman suit. The emotions run very high and we’ve had a lot of these wins and so it came out one time. I don’t think the other team is looking at it saying ‘Okay now we are going to try to beat these guys more so because someone came out in Spiderman outfit.’ This was after a game and it was part of a celebration, so the timing of all that would suggest he broke it out for that time. I don’t think you’ll see it be a consistent thing, but those lines are based on who’s talking about him. We’ve had a lot of fun with the walk-off wins and we worked hard to get those walk-off wins. We’ll keep an eye on that.”

Listen to Bob Melvin on 95.7 The Game in San Francisco here