Athletics manager Mark Kotsay said he felt this could be a breakout season for first baseman Tyler Soderstrom coming out of spring training.
“He put in a lot of work in the offseason (and) came to spring training with a great mindset,” Kotsay said of the first-round pick of the 2020 MLB Draft out of Turlock (Calif.) High School. “The at-bats in spring training really didn’t have the results but we liked the approach, and it’s starting to pay off right now.”
Boy, is it.
Soderstrom, 23, goes into Wednesday night’s game against the host Chicago White Sox leading the league with eight home runs. He belted a pair of three-run shots in a 12-3 victory over the White Sox in Tuesday’s series opener.
It was the third multi-homer game of Soderstrom’s brief career, all of them coming this season. That put him in some very elite company. Only four other players in Major League Baseball history have had three multi-homer games in the first 17 games of a season: Teoscar Hernandez (2020), Carlos Delgado (2001), Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson (1974) and Ken Keltner (1948).
“To watch him have the success over the first 17 games has been fun,” Kotsay said.
Said Soderstrom: “I guess you could say (it’s) a dream come true. As a kid, you dream of that. Pretty cool. I’m really at a loss for words, for sure.”
The A’s will turn to right-hander Osvaldo Bido (1-1, 3.00 ERA) in the second contest of the three-game series on Wednesday night.
Bido has yet to face the White Sox in his career and comes in off a 2-1 loss to the San Diego Padres last Wednesday, allowing two runs on nine hits over five innings.
“There’s a couple of pitches he could have executed with two strikes,” Kotsay said. “But overall, to come off there with five innings and two runs, I thought he did a nice job just giving us a chance to win the game.”
Eight of the nine hits that Bido allowed were singles. He has allowed two runs in each of his three starts this season.
“His mix is the sinker that he can throw, and he throws the cutter off that,” Kotsay said. “Those two pitches generally create weak contact.”
Right-hander Jonathan Cannon (0-2, 5.79) will try to even the series for the White Sox. Cannon won his only previous start against the Athletics last August in Oakland, allowing one run on six hits over six innings while striking out five.
Cannon comes in off a 6-1 loss at Cleveland on Thursday when he gave up six runs on seven hits, including a two-run homer to both Kyle Manzardo and Steven Kwan.
Despite the lopsided loss in Tuesday’s series opener, White Sox manager Will Venable was upbeat afterward, pointing out that his team rallied from an early three-run deficit in the top of the first to tie it in the bottom half of the inning on a three-run blast by Andrew Vaughn.
“No. 1, really happy that they responded in the first inning there,” Venable said. “To go down three early and then bounce back in the bottom of the first there and score some runs is awesome. And we continued to fight the whole game, and then it got away from us there. Just really happy with our effort and that they just kept playing.”
–Field Level Media
