Brent Rooker, Daz Cameron, JJ Bleday and Lawrence Butler kept the swinging Athletics red-hot in the month of July as Oakland defeated the San Francisco Giants 5-2 on Tuesday night at Oracle Park.
Rooker continued his incredible month, hitting his 11th home run of July, while JP Sears shut down a Giants offense that was rolling on a four-game winning streak heading into the Bay Bridge Series.
As July ends, the A’s are 15-8 and playing their best baseball in years thanks largely in part to Rooker, whom Oakland decided against dealing at the 2024 MLB trade deadline. While it took a little while for the young roster to mature, the A’s offense now looks like one of the MLB's strongest with a league-leading 45 home runs in July.
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Rooker was the subject of trade rumors in the leadup to Tuesday's deadline, but the A’s decided to stick with him and many of their young players. This fact was not lost on Rooker, who was visibly emotional in his postgame interview with NBC Sports Bay Area’s Dave Stewart and Brodie Brazil on "A's Postgame Live."
“Isn’t it nice to know you are staying with the team?” Brazil asked.
“It is, and I’m playing right where I want to be,” Rooker said. “I couldn’t be more thrilled to still be here. The guys in that clubhouse are a special group, we’re moving in the right direction and I’m excited to see where it goes.”
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Sears allowed no runs, surrendered just three hits and collected nine strikeouts through seven innings of work against San Francisco.
The progress Rooker has made in the past year was not lost on manager Mark Kotsay, who noted the incredible journey that the 29-year-old has been on since being added to the roster at the end of spring training last year.
“It has been a long road for him,” Kotsay told reporters after the game. “It brings back memories of sitting in this office last year and making him the 26th man on the roster, and now seeing him flourish and really make a name for himself in this game right now, establishing himself as a middle-of-the-order bat that needs to be feared.”
Kotsay also explained how the team is starting to come together after many months of uneven play.
“I think you’re just seeing the start of it,” Kotsay said. “It’s nice. I don’t want to say they’re validating themselves, we still have a long season to play, a long way to go to continue to play good baseball, continue to swing the bats the way we are. But as I said pregame, this group is starting to believe in themselves and that’s powerful when that happens.
"This group is starting to believe in themselves."
— A's on NBCS (@NBCSAthletics) July 31, 2024
Mark Kotsay is loving the vibes after the A's kept their red-hot July alive pic.twitter.com/q4D0WXLjDk
While the MLB playoffs out of reach this season, the A's commitment to their young talent bodes well for the future of the franchise given how well things have been going lately. Oakland has found its success formula: lockdown pitching and explosive offense, so the future looks bright.
If they continue to execute that formula, they could end up playing postseason spoiler as the season enters the stretch run.
