Elephant Rumblings: Shea Langeliers hits four homers in four days

Happy Friday, Athletics Nation!

Remember 2020? It was a weird year. The A’s had both Sean Murphy and Jonah Heim on their catching depth chart. Heim wasn’t a particularly highly touted prospect; he posted a 41 wRC+ to start his big league career in Oakland before getting traded to the Rangers along with Khris Davis for Elvis Andrus.

Murphy was a highly touted prospect, and he lived up to expectations in Oakland, winning a gold glove and putting up 10.6 fWAR in 330 appearances with the A’s from 2019-22. But the A’s were in full rebuild mode by the end of last season, and they had acquired yet another hot catching prospect in Shea Langeliers as part of the Matt Olson trade. So Murph followed Oly to Atlanta in a convoluted deal that netted the A’s five players, Esteury Ruiz being the most prominent among them so far.

Murphy and Heim were the starting catchers for the 2023 All-Star game. Meanwhile, Langeliers, prized for his power at the plate, has slashed .208/.272/.391. But his bat woke up in a big way this week: Bangeliers has hit four home runs in as many days.

The parade of bangers began on Monday with this monster shot against the Royals.

Shea put the A’s ahead on Tuesday with his second home run of the week as Oakland clinched the series with a 5-4 win.

The A’s bats fell utterly silent on Wednesday, but made up for it on Thursday with five dingers—two of them from Langeliers. The first was this three-run go-ahead shot in the fourth.

Two innings later, he tied the game back up with this shot.

The A’s won all three of the games Langeliers homered in, and they’ve won three of their last four for the first time since the first week of July. Are things are finally clicking for Shea against MLB pitching? Keep this party going into the weekend, and keep on mashing into the fall, Bangeliers!

A’s Coverage:

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• Kleinschmidt: A’s rookie passes Mark McGwire in team record book
• Borek: No. 6 overall pick Jacob Wilson clobbers first pro homer

MLB News & Interest:

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• Adams: Blake Treinen Begins Rehab Assignment
• McDonald: Brian Cashman Discusses Yankees’ Season, Future Plans
• Morgenstern: Reds Place Joey Votto On 10-Day IL, Recall Nick Senzel
• Today in Baseball History

Best of X:

Gelof got his tenth faster than Big Mac did.

Estes continues to impress.

Pretty smooth alright.

Muller taking time out for the kids.

HBD Mason Miller!

Birthday boy puts in a nice rehab performance.

The baseball community is stunned and saddened by the passing of Mychael Urban.

That’s one heckuva pension.