Happy Friday A’s fans!
The Athletics wrapped up their season-opening road trip this week with a series loss to the Atlanta Braves. Combined with the sweep to open the year up in Toronto against the Blue Jays and the A’s are already behind the eight ball with a 1-5 record to begin the year, sitting dead last in the division. No A’s squad has ever made the playoffs after that rough of a start, but there’s a first time for everything, is what I always say.
The A’s will be back home tonight though! A little
bit of home cooking is always a recipe to right the ship and begin a hot streak. The starting rotation hasn’t pulled their weight, and the lineup has been much more lackluster than expected, but the A’s can’t let a tough six-game stretch ruin the next five and a half months of their year. None of us would be all doom-and-gloom if this was in the middle of July. It’s time for the guys to wake up and play to their potential. Hopefully getting to play in front of the home town fans will spark something that’s been missing for the past week.
Things won’t get much easier from an opponent’s standpoint however. The Green & Gold have a three-game matchup with the division-rival Houston Astros. While they’ve taken a step back from their juggernaut years, the Astros are still a quality, well-rounded team that the A’s need to take seriously, perhaps even more so because we’re in the same division. Houston, who went 87-75 last year and finished in second place in the AL West behind the Seattle Mariners, are out to a quick start as they’ll arrive to Sacramento in first place with a 5-2 record. They split a four-game series with another division rival in the Angels to open the year before sweeping the Boston Red Sox in Houston. This’ll be their first road trip of the year so knocking them down a peg would be nice, especially at home.
Kicking off the series tonight we’ll be treated to a matchup between southpaw Jeffrey Springs versus righty Cristian Javier. Springs opened his year on a high note (unlike last season), pitching into the sixth inning against a strong Toronto lineup. While he only collected a pair of punchouts, he kept the damage to a minimum as he gave the A’s a chance to win that second game of the year by allowing just two runs to score. It didn’t work out as the bullpen imploded and ruined Springs’ chances for a W, but it was an encouraging outing for the #2 starter in the rotation. Javier on the other hand got touched up for six earned runs in 4 2/3 innings of work in his first start of the season against the Angels. It’s been a tough couple of years for Javier thanks to injuries but he’s supposedly healthy now. Does he still have the ‘stuff’ that made him a seemingly core pitcher just a couple seasons ago?
Tomorrow’s contest will see right-handers Luis Morales and Tatsuya Imai go at it for the first of what should be plenty of matchups between these two. Morales, only 23 years of age, is one of the top prospects in the A’s system but got absolutely rocked in his first start, allowing five runs in less than five innings of work against the Blue Jays. That continued a worrying trend that began during spring so hopefully he can turn things around against a division rival that he has yet to see in a professional game up to this point. Most of the Astros hitters won’t have seen much of his stuff in person so on that front he’s got an advantage. Though, the same can be said about Imai and the A’s. Houston’s big expenditure this offseason also got knocked around in his first big league game last week, yielding four runs to the Angels in 2 2/3 innings of work. We could be in store for a offensive clinic on Saturday afternoon at Sutter Health.
Wrapping up the series on Sunday afternoon, the A’s will send #5 starter Jacob Lopez to the bump while Houston counters with longtime Astro Lance McCullers Jr. Lopez was so-so in his first start of the year, tossing four full frames and allowing three runs against the Braves. Not great, not terrible. We’ll be looking for more length from the lefty today against an Astros squad that he’s yet to allow a run to in two career starts. McCullers, meanwhile, well we’ve seen plenty of him over the years. The oft-injured righty has seemingly overcome his litany of injuries to be ready for the start of the regular season and he looked like he was in mid-season form in his first start, where he pitched seven innings of one-run ball against the Boston Red Sox. While Saturday could be a high-scoring affair, runs may be at a premium on Sunday in the finale.
Once the A’s finish this series it’s back to the road as the squad will have to get back on a plane and return to the East Coast. Luckily they won’t have to travel too far after that as they’ll have three games against the New York Yankees before crossing town to take on the Mets. The schedule makers didn’t do us any favors in that regard. Let’s just call it… getting the tough parts of the schedule out of the way early.
So what will we see this weekend? A home sweep? Nick Kurtz’s first home run of the season? A perfect game from an A’s pitcher? Gotta tune in to find out! Have a great weekend A’s fans! Hopefully one filled with wins over those Astros.
A’s Coverage:
- Extensions To Colt Emerson And Konnor Griffin A New Trend?
- A’s Drop Another Series In 5-1 Defeat To Braves
- Here’s where all of the Athletics’ Top 30 prospects will begin 2026 season
- 7 More Up-Arrow MLB Prospects Who Caught Our Attention In Arizona This Spring
- 1 year after Cal Raleigh’s 60 home runs, are we about to see ANOTHER historic catching season?
- Athletics defeat Braves 5-2 in Atlanta
- Blue Jays set MLB record with 50 strikeouts in 3-game sweep of A’s
- What the A’s Did Against Toronto Has Never Happened in MLB History
- There Is An “A” In “GrAvediggers”
- A’s see timing, benefits of move to Las Vegas as a precursor to a dynasty
- AN Exclusive: Blogfather Observes The Wild Denzelope In Its Natural Habitat
- AN Exclusive: Blogfather Toes The Rubber With Pitching Coach Scott Emerson
- AN Exclusive: Blogfather Catches Up With Starting Pitcher Jacob Lopez
MLB News and Interest:
- Top prospect in baseball Konnor Griffin to make MLB debut Friday at home
- Pirates, Grifffin working towards record-breaking extension
- Reds, Sal Stewart have mutual interest in extension
- Orioles’ Samuel Basallo makes MLB’s first game-ending ABS challenge
- Rockies place starter Jose Quintana on injured list
- Trevor Bauer returns to U.S. with minor league Ducks
- Mariners notes: Crawford, Emerson, Shortstop
- Today in Baseball History
Best of X:
‘Bangeliers’ is on track for a massive year:
Nick Kurtz is loving his first-row seat to Langeliers:
You fall down the Power Rankings when you begin the season 1-5:
Here was the Rockhounds’ first lineup of the year. A couple high-profile prospects atop the batting order:
And here was how the Single-A Lugnuts lined up:
We definitely need more from the starting rotation if we’re going to turn this around:
