WEST SACRAMENTO — For the second straight season, the Athletics have found themselves in a massive slide in the American League West standings and straying further away from postseason contention.
And with the losing and mounting injuries, the criticism and rumors have begun to swirl.
The A’s entered Tuesday on a nine-game losing streak and having dropped 20 of the past 24 games. The club sat in fourth-place in the division standings with a 44-62 record (.415 winning percentage) after beginning the season with a 26-24 mark and holding sole possession of first place for 31 days, a run that ultimately ended on May 27. This recent skid comes after a 1-20 collapse between May 14 and June 4 last season.
The struggles have come in part to an avalanche of injuries, which includes season-ending surgeries for Brent Rooker (left knee) and Mark Leiter Jr. (right hip), as well as an operation on the right meniscus of Shea Langeliers that could also have him shelved for the remainder of the year.
Nick Kurtz, Jacob Wilson, Luis Severino, JT Ginn, Zack Gelof, Denzel Clarke and Tyler Soderstrom are others that have spent significant time on the injured list this season. Soderstrom, specifically, missed eight games between June 28 to July 8 with left hip impingement — one of the more brief IL stints on the roster — and has played in 94 games this season, third-most on the team.
The continuous losing and the unavailability of injured players like Langeliers, Severino and Gelof — each with less years of team control that would make them hot commodities on the trade market — have had rival front offices inquiring about other young stars. For the first time in his young career as a professional baseball player, Soderstrom has seen his name thrown around in trade rumors leading up to the Major League Baseball trade deadline at 3 p.m. PST on Monday.
He has clearly been unfazed by the difficulties facing the team.
In his second full season and the first of a franchise-record 7-year, $86 million contract extension, the 24-year-old left-handed slugger from Turlock entered Tuesday with a .252 batting average and a .831 OPS with 85 hits, including 22 doubles and 49 RBI.
“It can be easy to look at all the negatives and the noise with everyone getting hurt and our record,” Soderstrom said pregame Tuesday. “But I think for me personally, I look at it as a challenge in front of me. I have to show up, no matter the circumstances, and continue to just get better. We have to battle through this, and if I can help battle through this, it's only going to make me a better player, and hopefully it pays its dividends in my career.”
In the first game of a four-game set against the Boston Red Sox on Monday at Sutter Health Park, an eventual 4-2 loss, Soderstrom stayed with the positive approach and ambushed the first pitch he saw against Red Sox starter Payton Tolle in the first inning, a 96.6 mph sinker, and drove it 375 feet to the opposite field for the 17th home run of the season and to extend his hitting streak to 10 games.
"I would probably say up to this point in my career, I think I'm starting to put it together,” Soderstrom said. “I mean, you're not going to get a hit every time (at the plate), but I feel like I'm consistently having good at-bats, and that's the only thing I can really control. From putting good at-bats together, I feel like the results show up a little more consistently, so I think I would say yeah, this is the most consistent series of at-bats I’ve had in my career, the most consistent I've ever been where I've been able to kind of control the zone and get a deep count and (see) more pitches.”
Despite the continuing slump record-wise, Athletics manager Mark Kotsay remained optimistic about the future of the team, particularly the leadership role in which Soderstrom currently finds himself in.
"I see a confidence in Tyler,” he said. "I saw it at times last year. I think, though, to hear him come out and voice that confidence is a step in the right direction. This is a player we invested in that we felt can be a long-term piece to this organization's success. And I think there's a point in guys' careers, and I can speak for it personally, where that confidence comes out, and you know you belong…. I think that Tyler's reached that point right now…”
Aside from his consistency and high performance at the plate, the left fielder was a Gold Glove finalist in his first year playing the position in 2025 and still retains the ability to play first base. That athleticism has also been highly regarded by rival front offices that field teams that remain in contention for the postseason.
Kotsay deferred any trade-related questions Monday to general manager David Forst: “David does the roster construction. If there's something that he feels he wants to share about a possible trade, we'll have that discussion. But right now, there hasn't been any discussions.”
Kotsay also refused to make excuses for the team’s performance regarding the influx of injuries.
"Everyone (deals with injuries),” Kotsay said. “It's just a year that it seems to all stack up that way this year."
Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy agreed that despite the hardships, the A’s remain dangerous in the home stretch as the team hopes build toward its first winning season since 2021 and the first postseason appearance since 2020 ahead of an expected relocation to Las Vegas in 2028.
"They’re still a good team that can hit, there's no secret about that,” Tracy said. “The injuries have popped up, but (we’re) very aware of some of the guys in the lineup that can do some damage.”
