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Brent Rooker has been a mainstay in the Athletics lineup since he broke out in 2023, playing at least 137 games in each of the past three seasons, and peaking with a full 162-game season in 2025.
This year he and the A's haven't had the same fortune, with the DH missing a couple of weeks earlier this season due to an oblique strain, and the past three weeks due to a bone bruise in his left knee that had been nagging him prior to landing on the IL.
In Monday's injury report, the team said that Rooker has started a "running and swinging progression."
"It's good progress," A's manager Mark Kotsay said on Tuesday. "He's actually being reevaluated today. Wouldn't say that the progress has stopped. I would say there's reason to feel like it hasn't progressed — like we talked about — as fast and efficiently as we like. He's down at Stanford with our doctors just going through another exam and reevaluating him."
When Rooker went on the IL earlier this season, Carlos Cortes stepped up and took over that spot in the lineup, becoming the A's second-best bat behind Nick Kurtz. Cortes posted a 184 wRC+ during that stretch.
This time around Cortes has been the A's worst bat during this stretch, posting a -77 wRC+ in 26 plate appearances, going 1-for-25 with a single and a hit-by-pitch. Shea Langeliers has also been struggling for the past few weeks, posting a 55 wRC+ since Rooker landed on the IL, while he was another player who was soaring the first time around with a 140 wRC+.
The rest of the A's injuries haven't helped either, with Jacob Wilson, Tyler Soderstrom and Zack Gelof all landing on the IL in the past week. Gelof and Soderstrom in particular had been key pieces of the A's offense, while Wilson has seemingly been the glue that holds the A's defense together for much of the campaign.
Rooker has struggled when he's been on the field this season compared to previous seasons, and a good portion of that can be attributed to the fact that he's been playing somewhat injured for much of the season.
While his walk rate has stayed similar to previous seasons at 9.4% (9.3% in 2025), his strikeout rate shot up to 32%. It had been just 22.2% last season, though that may have been the outlier season, with the slugging righty striking out at a 32.7% clip in his breakout 2023 season and 28.8% the following year in 2024.
The hope for the A's as they enter July at 40-46, four games back in the AL West and 3.5 back in the AL Wild Card, is that some of their injured bats return quickly, so that they don't continue to slip in the standings.
Gelof would appear to be the closest to a return, with the expectation being he'd serve only the minimum 10-day IL stint. His return would help stabilize the team's defense wherever they choose to play him, and would add another key bat to the offense. The other three stars have murkier timelines at the moment.
Join the conversation at Athletics Roundtable — your home for A's baseball coverage and community! You can also follow Jason @ByJasonB on Twitter or @JasonBurke on BlueSky so you never miss an article!
Continue reading...
This year he and the A's haven't had the same fortune, with the DH missing a couple of weeks earlier this season due to an oblique strain, and the past three weeks due to a bone bruise in his left knee that had been nagging him prior to landing on the IL.
In Monday's injury report, the team said that Rooker has started a "running and swinging progression."
"It's good progress," A's manager Mark Kotsay said on Tuesday. "He's actually being reevaluated today. Wouldn't say that the progress has stopped. I would say there's reason to feel like it hasn't progressed — like we talked about — as fast and efficiently as we like. He's down at Stanford with our doctors just going through another exam and reevaluating him."
When Rooker went on the IL earlier this season, Carlos Cortes stepped up and took over that spot in the lineup, becoming the A's second-best bat behind Nick Kurtz. Cortes posted a 184 wRC+ during that stretch.
This time around Cortes has been the A's worst bat during this stretch, posting a -77 wRC+ in 26 plate appearances, going 1-for-25 with a single and a hit-by-pitch. Shea Langeliers has also been struggling for the past few weeks, posting a 55 wRC+ since Rooker landed on the IL, while he was another player who was soaring the first time around with a 140 wRC+.
The rest of the A's injuries haven't helped either, with Jacob Wilson, Tyler Soderstrom and Zack Gelof all landing on the IL in the past week. Gelof and Soderstrom in particular had been key pieces of the A's offense, while Wilson has seemingly been the glue that holds the A's defense together for much of the campaign.
Rooker has struggled when he's been on the field this season compared to previous seasons, and a good portion of that can be attributed to the fact that he's been playing somewhat injured for much of the season.
While his walk rate has stayed similar to previous seasons at 9.4% (9.3% in 2025), his strikeout rate shot up to 32%. It had been just 22.2% last season, though that may have been the outlier season, with the slugging righty striking out at a 32.7% clip in his breakout 2023 season and 28.8% the following year in 2024.
The hope for the A's as they enter July at 40-46, four games back in the AL West and 3.5 back in the AL Wild Card, is that some of their injured bats return quickly, so that they don't continue to slip in the standings.
Gelof would appear to be the closest to a return, with the expectation being he'd serve only the minimum 10-day IL stint. His return would help stabilize the team's defense wherever they choose to play him, and would add another key bat to the offense. The other three stars have murkier timelines at the moment.
Join the conversation at Athletics Roundtable — your home for A's baseball coverage and community! You can also follow Jason @ByJasonB on Twitter or @JasonBurke on BlueSky so you never miss an article!
Continue reading...
