Some fun things about new Oakland A’s pitcher Tanner Roark

The Oakland A’s picked up another player ahead of Wednesday’s MLB trade deadline, acquiring starting pitcher Tanner Roark from the Reds. Click here for more details on the trade, and on who Roark is as a pitcher.

In the meantime, Twitter offered up some fun tidbits on the newest member of the green and gold.

1. Arby’s

Sometimes when a player gets traded, it happens during a game and the cameras catch him hearing the news and hugging his teammates in the dugout. That was not the case here — the Reds were indeed playing, but Roark was already heading out toward Atlanta, where he was set to make his next start against the Braves.

So if he wasn’t with the team on Wednesday, then where was he? Roark was thinking different. He was thinking Arby’s.

Bad news, though. Arby’s may have the meats, but they don’t have a location in Oakland.

It’ll be a bit of a trek if Roark wants some good mood food, either up to Fairfield or Travis AFB, or down to San Jose or Sunnyvale, or over to Tracy, Lodi, or Stockton.

What are you eating today?

2. Sonny approved

A’s fans are quite familiar with one of Roark’s now-former teammates in Cincinnati: Sonny Gray, who was acquired by the Reds last winter. Sonny wasted no time passing on a glowing report to his old buddies in Oakland.

Roark is also reunited with Matt Williams, his old manager from the Washington Nationals.

“Matt Williams had him in Washington and loved the way he competes,” said general manager David Forst, via insider Martin Gallegos. “He throws strikes and goes after guys.”

3. Madison Roark

The A’s account retweeted this gem from 2016, when Roark was in Washington.

A couple years later, the following highlight emerged of 8-year-old Madison. Can she play second base, by any chance?

Tanner and his wife, Amanda, have three children.

4. Facial hair game

Gonna need you to go ahead and bring back this look, Tanner, kthx.

Also, while we’re at it, gonna need Manaea to bring back those chops too, but that’s another story.

5. Tanner party

This one isn’t a tweet, just an amazing fact that I can’t get over. Last winter, when Roark was traded from the Nats to the Reds, the player Cincy sent back to Washington was reliever Tanner Rainey.

There have been two players in all of MLB history with the first name Tanner and the last initial R. They’re both right-handed pitchers, and they were traded for each other straight-up, with no other players involved. It’s one of those wonderful little coincidences that baseball has to offer now and then.

And that’s before considering that Roark is not the A’s only starting pitcher named Tanner. They have Tanner Anderson as a depth arm at Triple-A Las Vegas, and he’s made five starts in the majors this year. Oakland only has around 8-10 starters right now, and two of them are named Tanner, which accounts for 50% of all the currently active Tanners who have appeared in MLB in their careers.

And Tanner Anderson now shares both of his names with rotation-mates, as the A’s also have Brett Anderson.

6. Dammit Jeff

OK that’s enough puns guys it’s time to get serious about —

Dammit Ben.

7. Actual baseball for a moment

I’ll leave you with one final tweet to think about. This one is actually about real baseball.

Not a bad list at all!