Tag: Oakland Athletics

Gage Jump drafted by Athletics, will join LSU teammate Tommy White

LSU’s ace will join teammate Tommy White in Oakland after he was taken with the 73rd pick in the 2024 MLB draft.

With the 73rd pick of the [autotag]2024 MLB Draft[/autotag] the Oakland Athletics selected [autotag]Gage Jump[/autotag], a left-handed pitcher from LSU.

Jump transferred to LSU after playing as a freshman for UCLA three years ago. He didn’t get to play two years ago for the Bruins after suffering an injury. He rehabbed his way back and became the Ace of the LSU pitching staff.

He finished the season with a 6-2 record and a 3.47 ERA. He struck out 101 hitters and walked 22 over 83 innings of work. Jump was rated as the No. 62 overall draft prospect by MLB.com so he was drafted around the area he was projected to go. The slot value for the No. 73 pick is $1,076,900.

Oakland took [autotag]Tommy White[/autotag] with the 40th pick of the draft so Jump will be joining his former teammate in the Athletics farm system.

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Tommy White selected by Oakland Athletics to lead off 2nd round of 2024 MLB draft

Tommy White became the first LSU player taken as he’s going to Oakland with the 40th pick in the draft.

With the 40th pick of the 2024 MLB Draft, the Oakland Athletics selected LSU third baseman [autotag]Tommy White[/autotag].

Tommy Tanks was one of the most prolific hitters in college baseball since he started as a Freshman for the NC State Wolfpack. After his freshman season with the Wolfpack, White transferred to LSU where he would team up with [autotag]Paul Skenes[/autotag], [autotag]Dylan Crews[/autotag], [autotag]Gavin Dugas[/autotag], [autotag]Tre Morgan[/autotag] and more to lead LSU to a national championship. Tommy finished that season with a .374 batting average and he had 24 doubles, 24 homers, and 105 RBI.

This season at LSU, his production dipped to a .330 batting average with 12 doubles, 24 homers, and 70 RBI. One area where White improved a lot while at LSU was on defense. He became a guy who was a designated hitter to a guy who had a lot of potential at the hot corner.

He heads to the Oakland A’s to play for a team that needs some help in a big way.

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Zamir White joins 7 other Raiders players to participate in ‘Battle for Vegas’ charity softball game

The full roster of Raiders playing in ‘Battle for Vegas’ charity softball game

Coming up on July 13th is the fifth annual Battle for Vegas charity softball game. This year it will feature seven Raiders players with punter AJ Cole as team captain.

Here is the full team Cole roster:

Raiders punter AJ Cole
Raiders RB Zamir White
Raiders K Daniel Carlson
Raiders RB Alexander Mattison
Raiders G Dylan Parham
Raiders S Tre’von Moehrig
Raiders CB Jakorian Bennett
Raiders T Thayer Munford Jr
Former Oakland A’s legend Jose Canseco
Former Oakland A’s legend Ozzie Canseco

This team will face off against Jack Eichel and current members of the Vegas Golden Knights including Zach Whitecloud, Keegan Kolesar, Nic Hague, Brendan Brisson along with former Golden Knights players Ryan Reaves and Logan Thompson. They are joined by Athletics alumnus Terrence Long and Ricky White.

The game will take place the Las Vegas Ballpark at Downtown Summerlin on Saturday, July 13 at 8 p.m.

Ticket prices start at $35 each with proceeds once again to be directed to the Vegas Golden Knights Foundation with beneficiary charities including Best Buddies Nevada and select other local charities.

Gates open at 6:00 p.m. The Home Run Derby, sponsored by the Athletics, begins at 7:00 p.m. with the ceremonial first pitch by Chance, mascot of the Vegas Golden Knights, and Stomper, mascot of the Athletics.

Former Notre Dame pitcher Brandon Bielak traded to Oakland Athletics

Hope this works out for him.

Former Notre Dame pitcher [autotag]Brandon Bielak[/autotag] is saying goodbye to the only MLB organization he has ever known. Five days after the Houston Astros designed the right-hander for assignment, he has been traded to the Oakland Athletics for cash considerations.

Ironically, the A’s and Astros are in the middle of a series with each other, so Bielak will be going to the other clubhouse when he next arrives at Minute Maid Park. That’s always a fun quirk whenever it happens in baseball.

Bielak was an 11th-round selection by the Astros out of Notre Dame in 2017. He made his big-league debut early in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. In five seasons, he has an 11-13 record and one save to go with a 4.65 ERA, 155 strikeouts and 85 walks over 191 2/3 innings. In the early part of this season, he has a 5.71 ERA over 17 1/3 innings and has not pitched since May 7.

Best of luck to Bielak in his new surroundings.

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Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Oakland closer Mason Miller has a demoralizing reason for why the A’s haven’t given him a custom entrance

Mason Miller brings the heat, but someone else needs to fix the electricity at the Oakland Coliseum

The list of reasons why you should watch the Oakland A’s this season pretty much starts and ends with Mason Miller.

Simply put, the 25-year-old closer is absolutely nasty.

Miller’s fastball-slider combo is one of the best in the league and it’s not even that much of an argument. He ranks in the 100th percentile across MLB in expected ERA, expected batting average, fastball velocity, strikeout rate, whiff percentage and hard-hit percentage.

Which is all just a fancy way of saying this dude throws straight gas and makes even the best hitters look silly.

So you’d think with all the success he’s having, the Athletics would join the growing trend of epic entrances for closers that’s swept across baseball. Except it hasn’t, of course, for the most Oakland of reasons.

Accord to Miller during an appearance with Foul Territory, the team told him if they tried to turn off the lights at the Oakland Coliseum, they might not be able to get them back on.

This is just so crushing. Imagine being Miller, going toe-to-toe with the likes of Edwin Diaz, Felix Bautista or Jhoan Duran but not event getting a third of the same treatment.

The A’s need to figure something out here, even if they refuse to spend a single dollar on a stadium fix. Maybe they could bring back bullpen cars and have Miller pull up to the mound in a Maserati. Literally anything to show that this is no regular A’s arm taking the mound.

After all, this is Oakland. Who knows how many times they’ll even get to use their closer this year? Each Mason Miller appearance is a gift. It’s time the A’s treat them that way.

Rutgers baseball: How is former-Scarlet Knight Ryan Lasko shaping up in the MiLB?

Ryan Lasko is going through an adjustment in the Oakland Athletics minor league system.

After getting drafted by the Oakland Athletics in Round 2 of the 2023 MLB Draft, former Rutgers centerfielder Ryan Lasko is very much finding his feet for Stockton Ports.

In his first season with the Athletics’ single A team, Lasko has registered a .138 batting average throughout his 29 at-bats early on this season. In seven games, the 6-foot, 190-pound outfielder recorded four hits, two RBIs, four walks, and one stolen base, logging a .242 on-base percentage.

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While with the Scarlet Knights, Lasko tied Rutgers’ single-season doubles record (24) in 2022 and received All-Big Ten First Team honors in 2023. In three seasons with Rutgers baseball, he registered a .314 batting average throughout his 641 at-bats. Lasko started 154 games for Rutgers, logging 201 hits, 38 home runs, 47 doubles, seven triples, and 135 RBIs.

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It is common for players to struggle early on in the minor leagues and the season is still very young. Lasko certainly showed the potential at Rutgers to take the next step and play at this level.

 

Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol grabbed an A’s security guard during a bizarre challenge moment

What a weird series of events here.

You don’t see this every day.

In Monday’s St. Louis Cardinals win over the Oakland A’s, Cards manager Oliver Marmol was thinking about challenging a play in which Brendan Donovan may have been safe after being apparently tagged at second. But an Athletics security guard wandered over in front of Marmol, who was trying to figure out if he wanted to challenge.

Marmol missed the deadline to challenge it, so the security guard may have accidentally helped the team that employs him, even though the Cardinals ended up winning the game.

What a weird series of events. Here you go:

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The Orioles’ Austin Hays blasted an HR ball that bizarrely got stuck in the Athletics’ foul pole

“He LITERALLY stuck it into the foul pole!”

Any true fan of the sport knows that baseball is a weird game often dictated by random chance. And as we learned during the Baltimore Orioles and Oakland Athletics’ matchup on Saturday, it’s also bound to show us things we’ve (probably) never seen before.

At the top of the fourth inning, Baltimore’s Austin Hays blasted a monster of a home run into left field. It hit the foul pole. The story does not stop here. As Hays began rounding the bases, the ball was actually stuck in the fencing of the foul pole. A fan sitting nearby would eventually retrieve the ball.

In all my years of watching this silly sport, I can’t say I’ve ever seen something so bizarre, as this video from NBC Sports California shows:

The Orioles — who lead the American League standings – wound up casually pummeling the Athletics with a final score of 7-2. And Hays gave us a weird baseball memory from a tune-up for one of baseball’s best teams.

A’s Ryan Noda responds to ump’s borderline strike call by marking it in the dirt, gets tossed

You can’t do that.

Having a bit of deja vu?

You should be. It was just a couple of weeks ago that Miami Marlins infielder Jean Segura didn’t like a call from an umpire on a strike and drew a line in the dirt to show where that pitch was, indicating it was outside. He was tossed immediately.

On Monday night, it was Oakland A’s first baseman Ryan Noda who saw a strike called — to be fair, it looked like it JUST hit the outside corner according to the broadcast, but we’ll see it’s borderline — and then took his bat and swiped some dirt.

BOOM, he was thrown out immediately, just like Segura.

Yep. Can’t do that.

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