DENVER -- Before Saturday night¡¯s 7-4 win over the Rockies at Coors Field, A¡¯s manager Mark Kotsay said that while his club is certainly proficient in hitting the long ball, there¡¯s much to improve upon for a lineup that entered the day batting .225.
¡°There¡¯s definitely slug in this lineup,¡± Kotsay said. ¡°But we need to score runs differently, and to have a complete offense. That¡¯s the goal.¡±
His team did just that on Saturday. Oh, there were home runs, to be sure -- in fact, when Brent Rooker launched a 425-foot solo shot over the center-field wall in the seventh inning, it made franchise history. It was the ninth straight game with a homer to open the season for the A¡¯s, eclipsing the mark of eight set by the 2002 club.
Two batters after Rooker¡¯s homer, Shea Langeliers smashed a two-run shot to center, giving the A¡¯s 14 home runs in the first nine games of the 2025 campaign.
Homers are great. But there¡¯s more to a strong offense than the dinger, and the A¡¯s finally saw it on Saturday night. Of their 11 hits, six were singles and three were doubles.
One of the singles and one of the doubles came off the bat of Jacob Wilson, who extended his season-opening hit streak to nine games -- the most by an A¡¯s batter since Billy Butler opened with a 12-game streak in 2015.
A day after delivering the biggest hit of the game during a 6-3 win in the snow, Wilson came through yet again on Saturday, lining a go-ahead two-run double down the left-field line in the sixth.
But glory came only after ignominy.
In the second inning, Wilson grounded into a 5-4-3 triple play. It was the 36th triple play the A¡¯s have hit into in franchise history, and the first since June 20, 2021, when Sean Murphy did so against the Yankees. Including the triple play the Rockies turned Saturday, the A¡¯s have grounded into 12 double (or triple) plays on the young season, the most in the Majors.
But what looked early on like more of the same for the A¡¯s turned into something akin to what Kotsay was looking for. In addition to the 11 hits, his club drew seven walks.
¡°The guys that can slug -- Rook, Lang -- those two homers were big for us,¡± Kotsay said. ¡°But the big hit was the Jacob Wilson double down the left-field line. You know, the kid hit into a triple play and we grounded into another double play. Momentum was kind of against us. So that was a big at-bat in the game right there that gave us the lead.
¡°Those are the types of innings we¡¯re going to need going forward. It was really good to see us taking a lot of walks tonight, which was great for our guys.¡±
JP Sears certainly appreciated the mid-game turnaround by his lineup. The left-hander wasn¡¯t as sharp as in his season debut, but he still gave the A¡¯s 6 1/3 innings over which he yielded three runs on six hits while walking two and striking out two.
¡°We know our offense has enough power to hit the ball out of the park,¡± Sears said. ¡°But also we were able to get some guys on base with some walks and some good hits. So, I think there¡¯s a lot of confidence right now is how you could describe us.¡±
The A¡¯s know that they have a lineup that is made of more than just sluggers. The question is: If the lineup begins to click on all cylinders consistently, just how dangerous could it become?
If you ask the club¡¯s most prolific power threat, the answer is: very.
¡°I think we have the capability to score in a ton of different ways,¡± Rooker said. ¡°I think you saw an inning there to get us on the board where [Lawrence Butler] kind of chopped a single and then had some really good baserunning, got home on a steal and a throwaway there. We did a good job with some timely hitting -- Jacob Wilson¡¯s been great the last two days.
¡° ¡ We have the capability in the lineup of scoring in a multitude of ways, and I think we¡¯re gonna start doing that here. But I think we¡¯ve shown flashes of it, for sure.¡±
Perhaps Wilson said it best, considering the team he plays for.
¡°When we play our A-game,¡± he said, ¡°I think we can beat anybody.¡±