A’s beat Cubs behind three home runs

A certain starting catcher had another multi-homer game

Back in the win column, baby. The A’s defeated the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday evening at Wrigley Field, beating the playoff hopefuls and playing spoiler for a Cubs team desperate for wins down the stretch.

Chicago’s starting pitcher tonight was Jordan WIcks, a former 1st-round draft pick from the 2021 Draft. Wicks made his MLB debut last year and made seven starts, looking decent enough for a rookie in his first taste of the majors. A top-10 prospect in the Cubs’ organization just last year, Wicks hasn’t had as easy of a time here in Year Two for the young lefty. Making his 10th start of the year for Chicago Wicks gave up the early lead to the good guys when starting catcher Shea Langeliers blasted a 2-run home run in the bottom of the first to take the early lead:

That was his 27th blast of the season and he’s creeping up on that 30-homer mark. Can he reach that benchmark with just 10 games to go after tonight’s contest? Was he even done adding on for the night?!

Now it was Oakland’s turn on defense and the starting pitcher for the Athletics tonight was rookie righty Mitch Spence. He’s had his ups and downs here in his first season as a major league pitcher but he’s been on a role recently down the home stretch. Spence had a tough start to this one, throwing 30 pitches in the very first frames as Chicago put two runners on to bring up the go-ahead run to the plate. Spence bent but didn’t break though, striking out Cubs deadline acquisition Isaac Paredes to escaped unharmed.

Just a couple of frames later the A’s would add on to their small lead, courtesy of a Lawrence Butler blast:

After spending last night on the bench Butler returned to the lineup and picked up right where he left off, continuing to be one of the hottest hitters in all of baseball over the past two months. That was homer #22 for the young outfielder and swatting 25 long balls by the end of the year is completely within reach, especially if he can keep up this torrid pace for two more weeks. That hit also extended his on-base streak to 24 straight games, behind only teammate Brent Rooker who has a league-leading 27 on-base streak going after collecting another hit tonight.

Back to Spence, Chicago again collected two hits in the second inning but again Spence held the line and induced a groundball double play to escape again undamaged. The first batter of the third inning finally tagged Spence as Chicago left fielder Ian Happ took the third pitch he saw and sent it over the right center field wall. Things began to spiral from there for the young righty as three additional singles brought in another Cubs run. A mound visit helped Spence finally get out of the third inning but now he was already at 67 pitches, so a quick fourth would be helpful. How about a five pitch inning? And how about following that fourth inning with a fifth that saw Spence strike out the side in what was his final inning of work, striking out the heart of Chicago’s batting order and putting a nice finishing touch on his 22nd start of his rookie season.

-Mitch Spence: 5 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 92 pitches

Considering how the first couple of innings went, the team should be thrilled to have gotten five full frames from the 26-year old right-hander. His season ERA now stands at 4.30 and he is now just 21 innings shy of his career-high. With just a couple weeks left it’s fair to say the club won’t be shutting him down, instead hopefully allow him to surpass that total and put a perfect end on his rookie campaign.

Back to the game. What was once a 3-0 lead was now down to just a one-run advantage, so some insurance would be nice. Enter Shea ‘Bangeliers’ for the second time tonight!!!

Make that 28 home runs for the sophomore backstop, and 30 home runs seems like a given at this point. He is only behind Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh for the MLB lead in homers from catchers (Raleigh is at 30 flat). Forget the 30-homer benchmark, can Langeliers overtake Raleigh and hit the most home runs from a catcher in 2024?

Chicago finally pulled their starter Wicks after he completed five full frames as well. Finally into the Cubs’ bullpen, the team didn’t have much luck against their relievers, managing just two hits and no walks over four innings against three relievers.

As the Athletics managed to break into the Cubs’ bullpen so did Chicago into Oakland’s. After Spence departed it was the lefty veteran Scott Alexander who was first out to keep the Cubs off the board. He allowed a hit during his inning of work but also struck out two batters to finish a scoreless outing and and dropping his season ERA to an impressive 2.36 over 40 outings. Right-handed rookie Tyler Ferguson followed Alexander for the seventh and posted the exact same line, one inning with a single allowed along with two strikeouts. Fellow rookie Michel Otañez started the eighth but didn’t finish after allowing a walk and hit bit TJ McFarland managed to finish the frame with no runs allowed. Now it was a closing situation, and you know what that means.

Enter 2024 All-Star Mason Miller, Oakland’s flame throwing closer who strikes fear into his opponents. His outing didn’t go as smoothly as hoped as the Cubs’ Ian Happ hit his second home run of the game to make it 4-3. Just a little extra excitement though as Miller finished off the Cubs by striking out Seiya Suzuki on a 103.6 (!) MPH fastball, putting the finishing touches on a close win for the Green & Gold.

Whew! A little bit of extra (and unnecessary) excitement there at the end. Miller collects his 26th save of the season and is now tied for the most saves by an A’s rookie. He’ll break that mark soon enough. Mitch Spence finally logs a win after getting denied the last few times out. Butler continues to be great, and Langeliers is showing why the club traded for him a couple of years ago. Vibes are right right now.

A win is a win and the club is back in that column, snapping the 3-game losing streak and giving the club a chance to win the series tomorrow morning in the finale. The Athletics will turn to lefty rookie Brady Basso while the Cubs will welcome their own lefty back in co-ace Justin Steele. They’ve got their work cut out for them tomorrow morning but they can do it! Let’s go A’s! Win the series!