The violent crack of the bat rang out through the Oakland Coliseum as a screaming line drive whipped through the mid-afternoon air. Then the distinct pop of a glove meeting ball elicited cheers from the limited attendance. It was the second out of the top of the sixth inning. Blink and you missed it.

The play required very little effort from A’s’ third baseman Matt Chapman, who stood in place and let a 97 mile-per-hour hit find him. In that context, the play had minimal significance other than being another step towards what was eventually a 7-0 A’s victory over the Detroit Tigers on Saturday, their seventh straight victory.

Chapman’s sixth-inning snag was a microcosm of his team’s defensive sure handedness, an aspect of Oakland’s game that its players believe was instrumental in helping them break out of a historically dreadful 0-6 start the season. Since the opening week, the A’s are 8-1 heading into Sunday’s series finale against the Tigers and back toward the top of the AL West standings.

“As a whole group, as a unit, we caught our stride,” designated hitter and first baseman Mitch Moreland said. “There for a while it seemed like we couldn’t get that hit rolling or couldn’t make that pitch but they’re always ready defensively.”

Since the start of the season, the A’s have committed the fewest errors in the American League and are tied with the Houston Astros atop the AL leaderboard in least unearned runs allowed (two), a testament to their clean defensive play and excellent pitching over the last week.

It’s the kind of defensive success that has come to define the Athletics in the last several years, according to manager Bob Melvin. They’ve simply stayed true to that aspect of their identity.

“Pretty much the day that Chapman and (first baseman Matt) Olson got here together, our defense really picked up,” Melvin said. “We were not a good defensive club before those guys got here.”

During the A’s first six games of the season, it seemed as though defense was the only aspect of the game they were able to somewhat reliably lean on. Their hitters had a collective batting average below the Mendoza Line and the pitching owned the worst staff ERA in the Majors.

Their defensive consistency this year has coincided with a massive philosophy change on that side of the ball.

Only the Los Angeles Dodgers (57.9 percent) have shifted more than the A’s (57.2 percent). The two clubs are the only ones in the Majors shifting more than 50 percent of the time and the A’s are currently baseball’s only team that shifts in more than 85 percent of all plate appearances against lefties (they shift an astounding 88.2 percent of the time in that scenario).

In 2020, Oakland utilized the defensive shift just 29.5 percent of the time, nearly five percent under league average and the 10th lowest shift percentage in baseball. Still, they were one of the league’s most effective defensive teams in the abbreviated season, which saw them finish fifth in MLB in DEF, a metric that measures defensive value relative to league average.

Though the A’s have nearly doubled their shift usage, it hasn’t left their returning players feeling like the organization has adopted an extreme.

“I think overall, we do a really good job with [the shift],” Olson said. “Not just finding that one spot to go to and sticking there no matter what, but having the balance between the analytical shift stuff and actually playing and watching the game and finding the happy medium.

From an advanced metrics standpoint, the A’s increase in shift usage hasn’t yet paid off. They rank towards the middle or bottom of the pack in nearly every advanced defensive statistic, something that could be remedied throughout the season. However, the naked eye as well as some of the game’s more basic statistics suggest that Oakland has been great with the glove.

For Moreland, who spent the better part of the last four seasons with the Boston Red Sox before a trade sent him to the San Diego Padres last year, the shift was a regular feature of AL East games, especially against the analytics-minded Tampa Bay Rays.

“From the defensive side, I’m good with it,” Moreland said. “Obviously, offensively being a guy who gets shifted a ton against, I’m not a big fan of it. When we’re getting outs it’s all good.”

The A’s dramatic increase in shift usage comes at a time when the concept of it seems to be at a crossroads. In an effort to increase batting averages on balls in play, MLB announced before the season that it would experiment with a rule change at the Double-A level that essentially eliminated an extreme defensive repositioning.

Teams will be required to have four infielders on the dirt at all times and the league could require teams to keep two players on either side of second base in the second half of the season. Either way, if either rule gets called up to the Majors, it will reverse the work Oakland has done. Some of its players are OK with that.

“It’s like a marathon for me,” A’s shortstop Elvis Andrus joked. “I probably run five miles in between short and right field. I’m not a big fan of the shift. I understand and I get it where we’re at with how much a difference it makes. Numbers speak for themselves. It’s something good when you’re playing defense and it’s something bad when you’re hitting. I think it needs to slow down a little bit.”

For now, though, the shift remains an accessible tool without regulation and the A’s are taking full advantage. It was a factor in helping them break out of an early-season skid and continues to be a weapon that kept their starting rotation’s ERA below 3.00 since April 9.

It’s an aspect of their game that won’t go away unless it has to.

“We take a lot of pride in it,” Melvin said of his team’s defensive efforts. “Even when we’re not hitting on the field, they’ll be out there taking ground balls. We really take a lot of pride in our defense and when our defense is good it keeps us in games. It’s an added factor.”