Even if the A's don't finish above .500 this year, they will still finish the year without completely fading into the background. There are things this team has been doing to command attention all season. Tyler Soderstrom had his home run lead in April. Jacob Wilson is parlaying his amazing rookie year into an ASG appearance. Toronto-born Denzel Clarke has been leading the season in unforgettable outfield grabs, and may continue this for a while. And now you have Nick Kurtz, with 12 homers in 45 games. Remember, Soderstrom, who was piling up homers before, has 14 in 85 games.
The home run guys in Sacramento...they're multiplying.
We already had Brent Rooker, who thankfully started getting hot this month, he's at 17 homers and 44 RBIs. Soderstrom followed behind, and looks to be a similarly great power bat. Kurtz has been very hot as of late, homered Saturday against the Yanks and even snuck in a run yesterday during the rout. Kurtz isn't special at 1st, and isn't great on the base paths, but he's 22 years old and can already hit MLB pitching. Yet ironically Max Muncy, but not that one, is 22 and has been up for a similar amount of time and isn't hitting at all, much like past infield phenom Kevin Smith, also not that one nor that one.
Even as the A's pray the Vegas stadium goes off without a hitch and suffers through playing in a minor league stadium [Severino's thoughts on this were well reported, and come off as a lot funnier now that he's gotten lit up in Yankee Stadium as well], they are still building a core. If they weren't I'd be worried, I mean this isn't the Pirates after all. But Kurtz has joined pieces like Wilson, Soderstrom, Rooker, Lawrence Butler and Mason Miller as foundational pieces for what could be an eventual run. They've got a ways to go in terms of filling things out, and there's still a few pieces [Clarke, Max Schuemann, Zach Gelof] where I'm not sure if they're starter pieces or long haul pieces, but you can see a ballclub here, for once.
The starting pitching still worries me, though, because I don't see as many long term answers there. Severino, Springs, Sears and Lopez can fill innings for now, but basically every homegrown young fireballer has gotten injured immediately. It happened to Joe Boyle, it happened to Gunnar Hoglund, I assume it's happened to Joey Estes. Juggling 32 year olds is not gonna be the way forward, they need a guy they can build a rotation around. And he really hasn't arrived yet, even if J.P. Sears is fundamentally the closest they've gotten.
The A's are a better team now than they've been since the exodus, and are close to getting out of punchline status, but they're maybe a few more trusted pieces away from really getting there. Once they don't have to trot out Luis Urias and Gio Urshela every game I'll be a little more excited.
Coming Tonight: The most likely Colorado Rockie to make the All-Star team.
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