Robbie Ray hopes his second start of the season is as good as his first when he faces a familiar opponent Tuesday night as the San Francisco Giants open a two-game home series against their Bay Area neighbors, the Oakland Athletics.
In a rivalry that dates back to the 1905 World Series, when the A’s represented Philadelphia and the Giants played in New York, the clubs will be meeting for a 145th time since the major leagues adopted interleague play in 1997. The A’s have gone 74-70 in the regular-season series.
Before that, the clubs had gone head-to-head exclusively as World Series rivals, with the Giants prevailing in 1905 before the A’s came out on top in 1911, 1913 and the “Earthquake Series” of 1989.
The home team prevailed in all four meetings last season, with the A’s rebounding from 2-1 and 8-3 defeats in San Francisco with 2-1 and 8-6 wins at home.
While projected A’s starter JP Sears (7-8, 4.81 ERA) has never faced the Giants, Ray (1-0, 1.80) has gone up against Oakland seven times in his career. He is 2-2 despite a fine 2.72 ERA in those games, with 57 strikeouts in 43 innings.
After missing almost all of the 2023 season and spending nearly four months this year on the injured list as he recovered from Tommy John surgery, Ray made a splashy Giants debut last Wednesday in Los Angeles, no-hitting the Dodgers for five innings in an 8-3 win. He was pulled after throwing 86 pitches, having allowed one run while striking out eight.
Giants manager Bob Melvin admitted afterward he was neither surprised by Ray’s performance nor the offensive support he received.
“It’s the name on the back that takes the mound for a game and you just gain confidence from,” Melvin said. “We’ve been waiting for this for a while.”
The Giants are coming off a four-game home sweep of the Colorado Rockies, equaling their longest winning streak of the season. Impressive efforts by Kyle Harrison, Blake Snell and Hayden Birdsong — coupled with Ray’s sharp return on the road earlier in the week — has given Melvin so many pitching options, he sent Jordan Hicks to the bullpen on Sunday. Hicks had started 20 times this year.
In the A’s, Ray will be encountering one of the hottest-hitting teams in baseball. At the start of play Monday, an off day for the team, Oakland led the majors in runs scored since the All-Star break with 59. Their 16 homers were one fewer than the total posted by the major-league-leading Los Angeles Dodgers.
Even while taking an 8-6 road defeat at the hands of the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday (denying the visitors a four-game sweep of their own), the A’s managed five or more runs for the seventh time in 10 games since the break. They went 7-3 in those contests.
The end of the two-game series coincides with the end of July, giving A’s slugger Brent Rooker two more opportunities to pad his American League Player of the Month credentials. Rooker began the week as the major league leader in RBIs in July with 28, possibly taking the 29-year-old off the trade market.
“We may do some things,” A’s general manager David Forst said with Tuesday’s deadline looming. “But anyone who expects we’re going to continue to just move guys for prospects will probably be disappointed, because there’s guys here we think are part of the team beyond this year.”
Sears will be attempting to cap off a solid month. After going 4-7 with a 5.00 ERA in his first 17 starts, he is 3-1 with a 4.03 ERA in four July outings.
–Field Level Media