Game Thread #20: Milwaukee Brewers (10-9) vs. Athletics (9-10)

Brewers and A’s face off in a weekend series

The Athletics are one of the most storied franchises in the history of baseball. One of the original American League teams, they won three of the first 10 World Series under the guidance of the venerable Connie Mack, then won two more back-to-back when they had a one-two punch of Lefty Grove and Jimmie Foxx, then they won three in a row from 1972-74, the only non-Yankees team to do so, then they won another in 1989 in the midst of three straight AL pennants. They invented Moneyball. Their mascot, unbeknownst to most modern fans, is/was an elephant.

The A’s began as one of the league’s glamour franchises in Philadelphia, which was the third-largest city in America when the franchise was new. After years of mismanagement made the A’s a hopeless team in the middle of the 20th century, they picked up and moved to Kansas City for an ill-fated 13 years. On the other side of that, they picked up a team with a few promising youngsters and moved them to Oakland, where they didn’t have a great home ballpark but where they played some beautiful baseball with guys like Rickey Henderson and the young, dynamic version of Reggie Jackson and Sal Bando and Bert Campaneris and Dennis Eckersley and, later, guys like Tim Hudson and Jason Giambi and Matt Chapman.

That this franchise has become the league’s biggest joke is quite sad. The league won’t even acknowledge the A’s as being from Sacramento; they would prefer we simply refer to them as the Athletics. I refuse. It should never be forgotten that the horrid mismanagement of this once-great franchise led to a run of (at least) three years in a minor league ballpark in Sacramento. They are, as far as I am concerned, currently the Sacramento Athletics.

As pathetic as the ownership situation is, the team on the field is actually pretty good. They come into this series at 9-10, but they have some interesting pieces; Lawrence Butler looks like a young star, Brent Rooker was one of the league’s best hitters last season, and the young Tyler Soderstrom comes in as the league’s leader in home runs. There are questions about the starting pitching, but they’ve also got one of the league’s most exciting closers, the flamethrowing Mason Miller.

Tonight, they’ll start the inexperienced right-hander J.T. Ginn, who has only 39 ¹⁄₃ innings in his career, only 5 ¹⁄₃ of which have come this year, all in a start last Saturday against the Mets in which he allowed one run in a 3-1 victory. Ginn is almost 26 and doesn’t have an especially impressive minor league resume, but he was a high draft pick in 2018, didn’t sign, and then got drafted in the second round a couple years later.

He’ll have a tough assignment tonight against Milwaukee’s Freddy Peralta, who has pitched to a 2.31 ERA through four starts. He was probably pushed a little too far in his last start, one in which the bullpen was thin and Peralta was asked to go an inning beyond where warning signs started to appear.

There’s a twist to Milwaukee’s starting lineup tonight too, as we are going to get our first major league look at Caleb Durbin, the infielder acquired alongside Nestor Cortes in the Devin Williams trade. Durbin’s start to the year at Triple-A Nashville has been somewhere between good and bad; he’s not hitting for much average, but he’s hit a couple homers, some doubles, and stolen three bases (though he’s also been caught twice). But the lack of production from the team’s third basemen has forced them to try something, and Durbin gets the call. He will bat ninth tonight in his MLB debut.

The A’s lineup tonight includes not just the aforementioned Butler, Rooker, and Soderstrom, but also players like the familiar Gio Urshela, “We Don’t Need William Contreras We Have Shea Langeliers,” and “Not that” Max Muncy.

First pitch is at 7:10 p.m. on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin and the Brewers Radio Network.