MLB Trade Rumors
The
Athletics were outscored by a 35-9 margin over the course of a four-game sweep at the hands of the Astros, and some injury concerns only further worsened Oakland’s nightmare of a series.
Chad Pinder will receive an MRI after suffering a left knee sprain while making a jumping catch at the wall in the first inning of today’s game. Pinder made an awkward landing while completing the play, and though he finished the inning, he was replaced by a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the frame.
Losing a valuable utilityman like Pinder would be another blow to an A’s lineup that is already missing some key names, though manager Bob Melvin suggested
In the 8th,
Matt Olson led off with a double off an outfielder’s glove, and then came around on a pair of productive groundouts. Not glamorous, but it provided a valuable run at a high-leverage moment, and it was exactly the kind of mini-rally the A’s couldn’t put together enough of last summer.
However, even after the promising news of a solid scoring effort, there was still a downside. Laureano exited the game with a jammed left wrist due to the sliding play below, though fortunately there was no structural damage in his X-rays, reports insider Martin Gallegos.
Spring Training 2021 standouts for every MLB team mlb.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mlb.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images
We’re about two weeks from 2021 Opening Day, and the Oakland A’s have good news and bad news on the injury front. A couple players are set to make their spring debuts after recovering from previous issues, but a couple others are newly hurt.
The new injuries begin with
Ramon Laureano, who was a late scratch from Tuesday’s Cactus League game. The problem is left side soreness, reports Melissa Lockard of The Athletic, which he first experienced taking swings in the cage, adds Shayna Rubin of the Mercury News.
But that’s not the only hit to the CF depth chart. Wednesday morning brought word that
Oakland A’s fans have been excited about
Jesús Luzardo for a long time, for a hundred different reasons.
The lefty’s stuff is incredible, with velocity and movement and secondary offerings to keep batters guessing. His control and command are impeccable. He’s both mature beyond his 23 years, and also having as much fun as a kid on the field, making him easy to like and root for. He had everything you could want in a pitching prospect, and he began to show it as a rookie last year, even earning a Game 1 playoff start in October.
But there’s still been one thing missing from our Luzardo experience so far. There were always rumors of its existence, but from a fan perspective it remained the stuff of legends. Somewhere, in a hidden baseball laboratory, he was working on a pitch called the