Despite shutout loss to cap month, A's show promise in strong July

SAN FRANCISCO -- Brent Rooker had a shot to produce a fitting final act to a red-hot month for both him and the A’s on Wednesday.

Leading off the top of the ninth against Giants starter Logan Webb after eight scoreless innings, Rooker -- MLB’s leader in home runs and RBIs for July -- was exactly whom the A’s wanted at the plate in such a situation.

As he has so often as of late, Rooker made loud contact, roping a changeup at an exit velocity of 105.1 mph. The sharp liner had the looks of a leadoff single until Matt Chapman snagged it just shy of the outfield grass at third base. Webb finished off a shutout, and the A’s went down quietly in a 1-0 loss at Oracle Park to split a two-game series against their cross-Bay rivals.

The A’s would have preferred to finish July on a higher note. Nonetheless, for a rebuilding club seeking to create momentum over the second half to carry into 2025, this month was a strong first step.

In what was their first winning month since July 2022, the A’s sit atop the American League with the best July record at 15-9, third best in the Majors behind only the D-backs (17-8) and Mets (17-10).

“The month was good,” said A’s manager Mark Kotsay. “We played our best baseball of the year, and the results showed that. … We’ve got a lot of confidence right now, so we’ll put tonight’s game behind us.”

Wednesday was an outlier in a month that saw the A’s perform as arguably the best offense in baseball. Oakland led the Majors in home runs (45) while ranking second in runs (148) and third in team slugging percentage (.491) and OPS (.828).

Despite collecting just five hits against Webb, the A’s finished the month with a team batting average of .267, their highest for a single month since also batting .267 in August 2019.

Here’s a look at some other offensive numbers from their potent month:

• Their 45 home runs are second-most in Oakland history in July (53 in 1996) and most in any month since hitting 45 in June 2019.
• The 148 runs scored are the A’s most in July since 2005 (155) and most in any month since June 2019 (149).
• Before this July, the A’s had not slugged over .487 in a single month since August 1999 (.511).

The two standouts from this month were Rooker and Lawrence Butler, both of whom have a strong case along with Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. for AL Player of the Month. Butler was right behind Rooker’s MLB-leading 11 homers and 30 RBIs for July with 10 homers and 27 RBIs.

Together Rooker and Butler became just the third duo in A’s history to hit 10 home runs in the same month. The other two:

• Mark McGwire (13) and Terry Steinbach (10) in July 1996
• Bob Johnson (15) and Jimmie Foxx (10) in June 1934

“Every time I hit a homer, he hits one to one-up me,” Butler said of Rooker. “And he lets me know it, too. It’s fun watching him go out and bang. He’s given me a lot of confidence. I just love to see him go out there and bang.”

Kotsay was part of the A’s coaching staff in 2017, which saw the emergence of young players such as Marcus Semien, Matt Chapman and Matt Olson. Oakland finished last in the AL West that year at 75-87, but those players formed the nucleus of a rebuilding A’s squad that went on to make the postseason every year from 2018-20 and contend throughout '21 before a roster teardown the following year.

With promising youngsters such as Butler, Shea Langeliers, JJ Bleday and Zack Gelof developing at the Major League level this season, and Rooker sticking around after the Trade Deadline despite heavy interest, Kotsay is beginning to see parallels to that club from seven years ago.

“I think you’re just seeing the start of it,” Kotsay said. “We still have a long way to go to continue to play good baseball. But this group is starting to believe in themselves, and that’s powerful when that happens. We saw the group in 2017 at the end of that season start to believe and come together. It’s really nice to see them all having fun and enjoying this success.”