A's Get Sweet Win in Texas

The Oakland Athletics are shaking up the AL Wild Card race. After taking Wednesday's series finale against the Toronto Blue Jays, the A's opened up their series with the reeling Texas Rangers with a 6-3 victory behind the bats of Shea Langeliers (1-for-4, HR, 2 rbi), Esteury Ruiz (2-for-4, HR, 2 rbi), and Zack Gelof (2-for-4, run). Trade acquisition Easton Lucas made his big-league debut, and recent waiver claim Devin Sweet earned his first MLB win. 

While the season has been lost for quite some time, in recent weeks the A's have been showing that there are parts of this team that should elicit some excitement heading into 2024 while starting September with a 5-2 record. They may not be in the thick of the playoff hunt next year, but they shouldn't be flirting with a third straight 100 loss season, either. 

Mark Kotsay told reporters after the game, "It's a great opportunity for us to go through this stretch. We knew what was in front of us to start September, last week of August, with 18 divisional games. We wanted to send a message and prepare ourselves going forward for a season in front of us, yet to finish this one running through the finish line and playing good baseball against our divisional opponents."

For today, let's focus on just three players that stood out from Friday's win. 

First up, we have Ruiz, who hit his fourth homer of the season and his second of September. Jordan Montgomery threw him three straight curveballs, and the third one was deposited over the fence in left-center, tying the game at three. It wasn't even a bad pitch, falling well below the strike zone, but Ruiz golfed it out at 100.8 mph for a projected distance of 402 feet. It was a similar pitch to the one that Kevin Smith drilled for a home run on Wednesday against Toronto. 

Not only is Ruiz second in baseball with 58 stolen bases, five behind Ronald Acuña Jr., but he has belted three balls over the fence in the second half in just 71 at-bats. He hit one in his first 334 ABs in the first half of the season. If this power stroke is a new feature, Ruiz could really become a menace to opposing teams. 

When asked who stood out to him in their series against the A's, Blue Jays manager John Schneider mentioned Ruiz and his "power potential" as one of the good young players on the Oakland roster.

Schneider didn't get a look at Devin Sweet earlier this week, but the Rangers received two helpings of sweets on Friday. The right-hander was designated for assignment by the Seattle Mariners on August 31 and claimed by the A's two days later. He was called up from Triple-A Las Vegas for the last game of the homestand and made his A's debut tonight in Arlington. 

Sweet worked two innings, facing the minimum, and struck out two. He sat 93-95 with his four-seamer, which he threw 62% of the time. He also offered a changeup that sat at 79 mph consistently 23% of the time, and rounded out his pitch mix with an 87-88 mph slider he threw 15% of the time. The Rangers are obviously a struggling team offensively and in the win column, but a few more performances like this one from the 27-year-old could give him an inside track to a bullpen spot heading to Spring Training next year.

Finally, there was the MLB debut of left-hander Easton Lucas, whom the A's acquired from the Baltimore Orioles in the Shintaro Fujinami trade. Lucas started the season in Double-A and after posting a 1.59 ERA across 17 innings he was bumped up to Triple-A where he held a 4.61 ERA in 13 ^2/3 innings and was walking nearly six batters per nine innings.

Since coming to the A's organization that walk rate has dropped to 2.25, while his strikeout rate, which had been 9.22 per nine, fell to 7.31. The ERA also went up to 5.63, but the Pacific Coast League is tough on pitchers and with just a 16 inning sample size to work with it's tough to weed out one bad night from the stat line. 

On Friday night Lucas took the mound in the fourth inning and the first pitch he threw was a 94.4 mph fastball to Marcus Semien that was called a ball. Semien ended up doubling and then advancing to third on a fielding error. Lucas struck out the next batter, Corey Seager, with a 95.2 mph fastball up and in that Seager tried to hold up on. 

Nathaniel Lowe singled home Semien, and after a fly out from Mitch Garver, Lucas walked the next two batters to load the bases after losing command of his four-seam. 12 of the 20 fastballs he threw were called balls. Still, Lucas kept his poise in his debut and got Ezequiel Duran to fly out to Ruiz in center on a cutter. 

While the juices may have been flowing a little bit, Lucas sat 94-95 with his fastball, which he threw 67% of the time. He threw his slider and his cutter each 17% of the time, and while his slider sat 83-85, his cutter was 89-91. 

The final line on Lucas (IP, 2 hits, ER, 2 BB, K) may not be the most impressive debut you'll ever see, but the fact that he was able to not have command of his fastball and still get out of that inning without allowing further damage can only be a good sign. Mark Kotsay told reporters after the game that Lucas told him he probably couldn't feel his legs out there. And yet, he got out of the jam. 

Lucas, 26, will be in the mix to be one of the left-handers in the A's bullpen next season. 

Notes: JJ Bleday is with the team in Texas and Kotsay is hopeful he'll be able to take some batting practice on the road trip to get a better gauge of where he's at as he recovers from a left knee sprain.