Elephant Rumblings: Spence’s special slider

Happy Wednesday, Athletics Nation!

I know I sound like a broken record, but how can I help it when the same thing keeps happening over and over?

The Padres walked off with a win last night in San Diego and handed the A’s their sixth consecutive series loss. If there is a silver lining to this series skid, it may be that the A’s haven’t been swept—they will be looking to avoid the sweep yet again today in the third and final game of the series at Petco. Hogan Harris will take the mound for the A’s, looking to build on his last two promising starts. Oakland’s bats will have to contend with Padres starter Michael King.

A’s righty Mitch Spence is having a solid rookie campaign. He’s risen from long relief duties to the starting rotation over the course of the season and has posted a 3.17 FIP along with a solid 50.7% ground ball rate.

As Martin Gallegos at MLB.com noted yesterday, Spence’s success stems from a five pitch arsenal highlighted by one of the liveliest sliders in baseball. Only the Padres’ Joe Musgrove is generating more horizontal break with his slide piece than Spence this season. Gallegos’s piece goes in depth on Spence’s pitch metrics and includes the young pitcher’s own thoughts on how his slider developed and how he uses it.

I’m calling it now—the A’s will win today if they score at least four runs. Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened often of late. Let’s go, Oakland!

A’s Coverage:

• Higashioka hits walk-off homer and Tatis extends hitting streak to 17 games as Padres beat A’s 4-3 ($)
• Spence has one of biggest sliders in Majors
• A’s invoke Dubs, Giants in defending need for Vegas ballpark investors

MLB News & Interest:

• MLB Power Rankings: Giants, Astros move on up; One big question for all 30 teams ($)
• J.T. Realmuto To Undergo Knee Surgery
• Former Giants announcer Brooks-Moon honored in Sacramento, headed to Birmingham
• Thirty things I’m hearing and watching for on MLB trade deadline with 50 days to go ($)
• Mariners Designate Kirby Snead, Matt Bowman For Assignment
• West Notes: Miller, Kershaw, Graterol, Scherzer
• Notes on Kaelen Culpepper and other top MLB Draft prospects from the Virginia Super Regional ($)
• Today in Baseball History

Best of X:

Noda goes deep for the Aviators.

It’s easy to forget that Fiers fired a no-no.

Remembering a Big Mac moment.

Top defenders.

The guy staring at his phone kinda cracks me up.

It’s a Whitmore day!