MLB news roundup
Good morning A’s fans! No game today but that may be a good thing with the losing streak they’re on right now.
Both sides of the ball aren’t playing their best during this most recent skid. The pitching staff has given up 30 runs over the past five losses, averaging six runs allowed. Now, 14 of those runs came from just two pitchers, JP Sears (8) and Mitch Spence (6), but the rest of the staff hasn’t exactly been pitching their best either. The losing has also deprived us of the chance to see flamethrower Mason Miller more as we only got to see him mop up yesterday’s loss. There’ve been some positives of course but the pitching as a whole is struggling right now.
The offense hasn’t been doing much better over this losing streak. I’m the past five games the team had only scored 10 times, and half of those came in one game. The entire offense outside of Miguel Andujar is struggling right now. The only three players to have multi-hit games over this losing streak have been Andujar (twice), Brent Rooker yesterday, and rookie Armando Alvarez, who actually had a three-hit night.
Even with these struggles, the club doesn’t have many options as far as reinforcements go. The most promising player that might be able to help is top prospect Jacob Wilson, who only just came off the IL and is back in action at Triple-A. Same goes for third baseman Brett Harris, who has gone 6-for-12 since returning from his own injury. Seth Brown has been tearing the ball off the cover as well. And on the pitching side, the best thing the club can do is get healthy. Starters Paul Blackburn, Joe Boyle, Ross Stripling, and Alex Wood are all on the shelf and getting any of them back would be helpful to a struggling staff.
Triple-A manager Frank Riordan talks about some of the prospects:
Find out what @AviatorsLV manager Fran Riordan has to say about promising young players like Tyler Soderstrom, Lawrence Butler, Jacob Wilson, Max Muncy, Colby Thomas & more on our latest podcast – only on A’s Cast @athleticscast24…https://t.co/0V9IBBKCNy
— Athletics Farm (@AthleticsFarm) June 27, 2024
A happy homecoming for Estes:
Lancaster native Joey Estes had about 25 people at Angel Stadium today: “Pitching here is a dream come true. Pitching in front of my whole family is amazing. Not everyone could make the drive. I have a big support system around my town. It's nice to have my family out here.”
— Martín Gallegos (@MartinJGallegos) June 26, 2024
Took him a while but Alvarez has his first MLB hits:
"I was just floating on a cloud running the bases."
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) June 26, 2024
Armando Alvarez had to wait until he was 29 for his first big league hit -- and then he added two more in his first start for the #Athletics: https://t.co/XreSR3rn59 pic.twitter.com/gdagMUtRqn
