Welcome to Thursday A\u2019s fans!<\/p>\n
The squad managed to avoid a sweep yet again last night, winning the series finale in convincing fashion against the Los Angeles Dodgers. It brought the A\u2019s record to 41-46 and with the weak AL West that\u2019s good enough to be just three games out of first place.<\/p>\n
The A\u2019s now have a day off to rest and recuperate before welcoming the Miami Marlins to town. The Marlins came into this season with low expectations but they\u2019ve surpassed them and then some. At 46-40 not only do they have a better record than every team in the AL West, but they\u2019re also third in arguably the toughest division in baseball, the NL East. They also come to Sacramento riding a a hot streak, having won two in a row and taking 10 of their past 12 contests. Wrong time to be facing the Fish right now.<\/p>\n
Miami has worked as a team to help them to their successful first half. While they\u2019re second-to-last in the National League in home runs, they\u2019re sixth in batting average, fifth in on-base percentage, and tied for 7th (with the Giants) in OPS. What they\u2019ve lacked in power they\u2019ve made up for with speed as their 94 steals are tops in the entire sport. They have four players already in double-digit swipes so A\u2019s catchers will likely have their hands full with Marlins on the basepaths. Plus, they\u2019ve been without their top power threat in Kyle Stowers for portions of this year but he\u2019s back and hitting well since his return. Miami could be a buyer this deadline season.<\/p>\n
The Miami starting rotation also has a couple bright spots. Max Meyer, a former 3rd overall pick in the draft, has broken out and is one of the best arms in the NL this year. Former Cy Young winner Sandy Alcantara hasn\u2019t been quite found his old form but has generally given them a chance to win when he takes the mound. And Eury Perez has also been adequate, though not quite living up to the hype that surrounded him when he arrived to the big leagues. We\u2019re likely to see Meyer this weekend but probably not Alcantara or Perez since they started the Marlins\u2019 past two games.<\/p>\n
Anyway, the A\u2019s. Unfortunately the bad injury news keeps on coming for the squad. Two days ago we learned that Designated Hitter Brent Rooker isn\u2019t making as much progress in his return from the knee injury that landed him on the injured list at the beginning of June\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2026 but just last night just an hour or so before first pitch, the A\u2019s announced the bad news: Rooker would be undergoing the knife, ending his season prematurely:<\/p>\n
Not great news. Though Rooker was suffering his worst season to date with the Athletics (.200\/.281\/.389, 10 home runs), the club would surely have prefered their expensive DH to be playing and trying to right himself. He\u2019s hit at least 30 home runs the past three years and the A\u2019s were counting on that production in the middle of the lineup this season. Instead he\u2019s been on the shelf since the first week of June and that\u2019s where he\u2019ll remain the rest of 2026.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a brutal blow for Rooker, who likely wanted to come back, turn his season around, and help drive the A\u2019s to the playoffs. Now he\u2019ll begin the process of rehabbing his knee and hopefully being 100% ready to go next year, when he\u2019ll be 32-years-old. That\u2019s no spring chicken but he\u2019s still locked in with the A\u2019s for another three years, and his salary is about to make a big jump this offseason from $8 million this year to $14 million next season. The club will certainly take things slow with Rook to make sure this surgery and rehab goes as perfectly as possible. The A\u2019s can\u2019t afford to have that big a salary be an anchor and still compete.<\/p>\n
Originally placed on the IL with what the team called a \u201cbone bruise\u201d, it\u2019s now officially to the point where the club needs to stop thinking of a stopgap for his roster spot, and start thinking about how they\u2019re going to replace him for the final three months of the season. The most likely option is to just simply stick in-house and rotate guys like Carlos Cortes, Lawence Butler, Shea Langeliers and others in and out of that spot depending on who Kotsay wants to give a half-day off to. It wouldn\u2019t cost the A\u2019s anything as far as prospects or salary, and the team could get some answers regarding some of their young bats, but the floor is also much lower without a more proven hitter in that spot.<\/p>\n
If the club has their sights set on the postseason and wants to bolster the DH spot, the front office had better at least be doing their due diligence on guys that could step into the roll for half a season. Would the A\u2019s make a bold trade for someone like the Giants\u2019 Luis Arraez? Or someone a bit less costly like the Rockies\u2019 Mickey Moniak or Boston\u2019s Willson Contreras? Who would you guys target now that Rooker is indeed done for the year?<\/p>\n
No game today everyone, but we have a big Fourth of July weekend ahead of us! Have a great one guys.<\/p>\n
Scary moment down in Double-A last night as outfield prospect Ryan Lasko suffered a collision with fellow outfield prospect Devin Taylor. Lasko was carted off while Taylor stayed in the game:<\/p>\n
But at least some good news. Keep Lasko in your thoughts, A\u2019s fans. Get well soon Ryan!<\/p>\n
Some \u201cpositive\u201d injury news regarding a top prospect:<\/p>\n
Leo De Vries and Jamie Arnold are heading to the Futures Game, where many of the game\u2019s current stars made their national debuts:<\/p>\n
A former well-regarded prospect is heading to Boston in exchange for a Low-A relief prospect:<\/p>\n
And yesterday\u2019s top performer down on the farm:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to Thursday A\u2019s fans! The squad managed to avoid a sweep yet again last night, winning the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[116118,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-383690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-athletics-news","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}