Oakland Athletics' JP Sears throws during a spring training baseball workout Monday, Feb. 20, 2023, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
OAKLAND — When Steven Kwan settles into the batter’s box as anticipated for the Cleveland Guardians Tuesday night to lead off the game against left-hander JP Sears of the Athletics, it’s a victory for every aspiring player who looks at the requisite prototypes of big leaguers and wonders how they can ever measure up.
Sears, 27, is in a precarious position as the No. 5 starter on a team with two projected starters currently on the injured list and expected to join the rotation at some point.
Kwan, 25, is the former Washington High of Fremont star entrenched as the Guardians’ leadoff batter, playing an old-school style of baseball while disregarding the trend of recent years which bowed at the altar of power while shrugging off the indignity of the strikeout.
He was in the middle of everything Monday night in a 12-11, 10-inning win for the Guardians, hitting a single, a double, a sacrifice fly and scoring three runs.
The Sears-Kwan opening act will serve as a reminder that baseball, even as teams are in search of the next Aaron Judge, are still open to a smallish crafty left-hander or a leadoff hitter who can work the count, run the bases and spray the ball anywhere in fair territory.
Sears, who went 6-3 with a 3.86 earned run average last season, is listed at a generous 5-foot-11, 180 pounds. He looks nothing like Kyle Muller, the 6-7, 250-pound lefty and No. 1 starter who has been dubbed “Moose” by his teammates.
“My fiancée jokes with me any time when I’m with my teammates that I’m always the smallest one,” Sears said before the A’s and Guardians opened a three-game series at the Coliseum. “I’m not really a small person, I’m just small compared to a lot of major league baseball players. I think it plays to my advantage at times with people underestimating you a little bit.”
Sears is from Sumter, South Carolina, and attempted The Citadel, a military school about 90 minutes from his home. It was his only scholarship offer, and Sears’ goals were simply to be on a Division I college baseball team and forge the kind of connections at The Citadel which could help him in business down the road.
Things changed when Sears was a junior. He went 7-3 with 142 strikeouts in 95 innings in 2017, including 20 in one game against Virginia Military Institute. That was swing-and-miss evidence for scouts to overlook his stature and Sears was an 11th-round draft pick by the Seattle Mariners.
He was traded first to the Yankees, then came to the A’s in the trade that also brought Ken Waldichuk in exchange for Frankie Montas.
“When JP came here last year, I think we saw a fastball that plays and he’s got a breaking ball he worked on in the offseason,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. “His opportunity starts tomorrow and we’ll watch him go out and compete and get deep into a game.”
Since Sears was sent to the minors by the Yankees immediately after getting his first big league win in relief, he understands how the business works. Right-handers Paul Blackburn (fingernail avulsion) and Drew Rucinski (hamstring) are on the mend and will be back at some point.
Sears has no intention of looking beyond the first pitch of his next start and wondering what is next.
“It’s going to be a long year if you’re thinking about that stuff,” Sears said. “I’m going to be preparing for my game, then I’m going to be preparing for my next game. If the plan changes, I’m going to be ready for that.”
Kwan, who finished third in A.L. Rookie of the Year balloting last season behind Julio Rodríguez of Seattle and Adley Rutschman of Baltimore, has no such concerns. He finished his first season hitting .298 with 89 runs scored, six home runs, 52 RBIs, 19 steals and a .373 on-base percentage.
Kwan had a five-RBI game in the opening series against Seattle, and his value, if anything, has become enhanced with larger bases and restricted pickoff opportunities.
Yet Kwan, an All-East Bay outfielder at Washington who went to Oregon State, underwent a crisis of confidence that had to do with his size (5-9, 170) and skillset when compared to college teammates.
“You don’t see a lot of Asian-Americans in baseball,” Kwan said. “I couldn’t look at the big leagues and find a guy that looks like me. I thought, ‘Maybe people like me don’t play major-league baseball.'”
With help from a sports psychologist, Kwan did his best to disregard the scouting analytics that favor power and home runs.
“You hear talk about all the launch angle stuff, and people are totally in your ear about it, but I just had to keep my head down and keep going and do what I can to impact a game,” Kwan said.
Cleveland manager Terry Francona laughed when asked if Kwan’s success in conjunction to rule changes could mean more players like him in the major leagues.
“If they were there, they’d already be in the big leagues,” Francona said. “Believe me, teams value what Steven Kwan can do. It’s hard to find guys that do what he does, they’re few and far between.”
A’s waste Brown’s ninth-inning lightning bolt
Down to their last out Monday night against elite Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase, Seth Brown launched a two-out, ninth-inning home run to tie the score 10-10.
The same Clase who was 42 of 46 in save opportunities last season and has been pretty much automatic with a filthy cutter that can approach 100 miles per hour.
Which only made the Athletics’ third straight defeat even more frustrating.
“Obviously it was awesome,” Brown said. “At that point, you’re just trying to get the next guy up so for me, it was just look for a cutter out over the plate, hit it hard somewhere, get the next guy up and see if we can get a really going. He left me one there and I was lucky enough to get the barrel on it.”
Offensive resurgence
After scoring just three runs in 27 innings in the opening series against the Los Angeles Angels, the Athletics jumped to a 6-2 lead and had a five-run second inning that included a three-run home run by Jace Peterson.
But the A’s couldn’t hold it. Cleveland got three more in the fourth off starter James Kaprielian, and two in the sixth with the help of an error by second baseman Tony Kemp. A three-run eighth for Cleveland against Domingo Acevedo included a generously scored triple which got past Conner Capel and two of the Guardians’ three sacrifice flies.
In the top of the 10th, with Kwan aboard as the free runner to open the inning, Amed Rosario singled him to third, Jose Ramirez singled home Kwan, and a wild pitch scored Rosario.
The A’s managed a single run in the bottom of the 10th.
Defensive indifference
Kotsay preached defense through all of spring training and felt his team came up short in that regard against Cleveland.
“The frustration level is at a 10. That’s a ballgame we should win,” Kotsay said. “We gave ‘em five runs. This ballclub needs to play good defense and we weren’t able to do that tonight . . . when we score 11 runs in a game and get 14 hits, we’re usually on the winning end of that.”
Said Kemp: “Definitely a tough loss. With that error in that inning, I felt I let the team down. Just got to play better defense and secure the ball and make sure I stop the bleeding. Just got to play better.
Notable
— Ryan Noda, a Rule 5 selection from the Dodgers organization who had two previous pinch-hitting appearances, started at first base and went 2-for-5 for his first major league hits. he also had two RBIs. His first hit was a single in the five-run second inning.
“It was relief and joy. A lot of hard work was put in and it was definitely exciting,” Noda said. “Not many words can express the excitement, honestly.”
— It was a mixed bag for Kapreilian, who gave up two runs in the first inning and three in the fourth but was sharp in the second, third and fifth innings. He gave up seven hits and was charged with five earned runs.
“That’s a good team over there. Their M.O. is they don’t strike out. They put the ball in play,” Kaprielian said. “I’ve got to use my defense and let what they do play into my game. But I’ve got to put up zeroes. They got us tonight.”
— Blackburn threw a two-inning side session of 40 pitches and could be sent for a rehab assignment at Class-A Stockton if he recovers well. Rucinski has done some “lateral running” according to Kotsay with the next step being a flat-ground bullpen session.
Originally published at Jerry McDonald