Butler gets best of childhood friend and old travel-ball teammate

OAKLAND -- Growing up playing on the same travel ball team as part of the Marquis Grissom Baseball Association as teenagers in Atlanta, Lawrence Butler and Taj Bradley felt the day would come when they would share the same field in the big leagues.

That time finally came in Monday night’s series opener between the A’s and Rays. Bradley was toeing the rubber as the starting pitcher for Tampa Bay. His first batter faced? Butler, of course.

It was a full circle moment for two Georgia natives and one that saw Butler come away with the bragging rights. He scorched a 109.3 mph single to right field -- the hardest exit velocity of the night by either team, according to StatCast -- off his childhood friend. Shortly after collecting the hit, Butler smiled at Bradley while settling in at first base.

“I was just trying to get a hit,” Butler said. “Really, I was just trying not to strike out. If he struck me out, I wouldn’t hear the end of it. So I was just trying not to strike out.”

Coming away with the win was most important for Butler, and he helped secure that for the A’s in a 3-0 victory over the Rays at the Coliseum by playing a role in each run scored. The single in the first set the table for JJ Bleday’s two-run homer later in the inning. Butler then brought home the third run on a sacrifice fly against Bradley in the fifth.

“I got a hit, so it was amazing [playing against him]. If I would have struck out, I might have said otherwise,” Butler said with a smirk. “But it was fun. That’s my boy. I’ve been playing with him and against him for a long time now. To be able to go out there and face him in the big leagues, it was a surreal moment.”

Butler and Bradley plan to exchange jerseys before Tuesday’s game, a practice that has become common whenever MGBA alumni square off against each other in a big league game.

“It was exciting,” Bradley said of facing Butler. “I got to talk to him while I was warming up in the hallway a little bit, and then seeing him on the mound, he smiled a little bit.”

Butler and Bradley are just two of several players who have come out of Grissom’s Baseball Association and have since gone professional. The large group -- which continues to train with Grissom every offseason -- includes others such as Michael Harris II, Chandler Simpson, Marc Church, Termarr Johnson, Xzavion Curry and Will Benson of the Reds, whom the A’s are scheduled to face next week in Cincinnati.

“It’s fun,” Butler said. “It’s more conversation for us in the offseason. We all try to keep tabs on one another and how we do against each other. When it’s all said and done, we can look back and see who was the better player.”

Butler is quickly emerging as one of the top players from that bunch with continued success as he establishes himself as a leadoff man for the A’s. After his sac fly on Monday, Butler has now come up with a runner on third base and less than two outs eight times this season. The 24-year-old outfielder has driven home that run five times in such situations while drawing a walk in the other three occasions.

“He’s getting better and better in those situations,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “That’s a great sign of growth from a young hitter being able to do that. We had two other at-bats tonight very similar with a man on third and less than two outs and two bad at-bats. That’s an area that we stress, and we’re trying to get better at.”

Joe Boyle set the tone for the A’s on the mound. Making his second start since getting recalled from Triple-A Las Vegas last week, the right-hander did not allow a hit until the fifth inning and finished with six scoreless innings as he pitched around three walks and two hits allowed with six strikeouts.

“He showed a little bit of fight,” Kotsay said of Boyle. “Some bounceback in that fifth and sixth to finish, I think that was the turnaround and that’s the goal. … He gave us a chance to win tonight.”