Streaks, slams, mishaps: A's first West Sacramento season was a rollercoaster
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- The A’s finished their first West Sacramento season below .500 after a 41-57 start.
- Nick Kurtz led a promising young core, hitting more than 30 homers in standout rookie year.
- Playing at Sutter Health Park at time drew criticism for lacking Major League conditions.
In some ways, what the Athletics did on the field during their first season in West Sacramento was predictable.
They finished well outside the playoff race but showed signs of promise with their array of young and talented hitters. Their pitching was a work in progress as it adjusted to Sutter Health Park, where the ball has been known to fly.
“Being a fly ball pitcher here is not ideal, but it is what it is,” A’s lefty starter Jeffrey Springs said.
Like their last season in Oakland in 2024, the A’s were a markedly better team in the second half of the year. They finished exactly 32-32 last year after a disappointing 37-61 opening. This year, their record after the All-Star break hovered within the Top 10 in the Major Leagues, but their 41-57 hole to begin the year was too difficult to emerge from. They lost 20 of 21 from May 14 to June 4, their worst slump since August 1943, as they’ll end the season with a losing record.
The A’s were eliminated from the postseason Sept. 17 and haven’t made it since 2020 when they were managed by Bob Melvin and anchored by stars like Marcus Semien, Matt Olson and Matt Chapman. And like the A’s often do, they moved off those stars, cycled through a rebuilding phase and are hoping to compete with a new young core in 2026.
All-Stars in shortstop Jacob Wilson and designated hitter Brent Rooker, rookie of the year favorite Nick Kurtz (who finished the year with a 1.002 on-base plus slugging percentage), emerging star catcher Shea Langeliers and outfielders Tyler Soderstrom and Lawrence Butler figure into the team’s long-term plans as they prepare for their planned move to Las Vegas in 2028.
Of course, the A’s drew national headlines for non-baseball reasons as they played their first of three seasons, with an option for a fourth in 2028, in West Sacramento following their controversial exit from Oakland.
Life in a minor league ballpark
Of course, the elephant in the room was the difficult situations players, coaches and staffers were put in. They spent the season sharing Sutter Health Park with the Triple-A River Cats. The minor league ballpark never felt like a Major League stadium, even with upgraded amenities for players such as new clubhouses, workout areas, batting cages, dugouts, bullpens and field lighting.
The A’s made the unprecedented move of deciding to play in a minor league ballpark 86 miles up Interstate 80 from their home of 57 years at the Oakland Coliseum. They spurned their passionate fans for a smaller ballpark in a market with a strong presence of San Francisco Giants fans because they couldn’t agree to a stadium lease extension with government officials in Oakland and Alameda County.
Other big league teams have played in minor league stadiums before, including this season.
But those weren’t voluntary decisions like those made by A’s owner John Fisher. The Toronto Blue Jays played at their Triple-A affiliate’s stadium in Buffalo, New York during the 2020 and part of the 2021 season due to COVID-19 and travel restrictions across the Canadian border. This year, the Tampa Bay Rays played at George M. Steinbrenner Field — where the Yankees hold their spring training and Single-A Tampa Tarpons play — because Hurricane Milton’s damage to Tropicana Field.
The A’s move came willingly, or at least at Fisher’s will. Staffers and Sutter Health Park employees did the best they could to make an awkward situation tolerable. Some players tacitly admitted their dislike for playing in a minor league stadium. Others, like ace Luis Severino weren’t afraid to share their feelings.
Severino likened the A’s home field to pitching in a Spring Training game, which drew national headlines when he returned to play his former team, the New York Yankees, in June.
“We don’t have that (Major League feel) at home right now. It’s not the same. It’s not the same atmosphere,” Severino said, according to the Athletic. “We don’t have a lot of fans. Our clubhouse is in left field. So, when we play day games, we have to just be in the sun. There’s no air conditioning there, too. It’s really tough.”
Severino finished the season with a 6.01 ERA at home compared to 3.02 on the road after signing a three-year, $67 million deal in the offseason.
“On the mental side,” Springs added, “it’s not necessarily a big-league environment. Whereas other places when you run out on the field and you see three, four decks, it feels more like a big stadium. You kind of play up to that. ... But other teams have to pitch here too.”
After that historic losing spell in May into June, A’s manager Mark Kotsay acknowledged it took some time getting used to the stadium situation.
“The biggest thing from a group standpoint is, we didn’t let that month continue to be another month and beyond,” Kotsay said during the final week of the season. “We really learned to make an adjustment and started building confidence that we can win games in this park (and) do it both offensively and with pitching combined.”
The thought, or hope, is that whatever mental hurdles the A’s had to overcome this season by playing in a shared minor league ballpark, they’ll be gone during the second season in 2026.
Stars shining brightly
A tragedy of the A’s stadium and market saga is how it overshadows their emerging young players.
Kurtz hit two more home runs on Thursday, improving his total to 35 on the season. He’s just the 12th rookie in MLB history to reach 35. Kurtz is 22, was promoted 24 games into the season and had played just 33 career minor league games.
The A’s drafted Kurtz with the No. 4 pick in the 2024 draft out of Wake Forest. He spent 2024 season playing 12 games combined between Single-A Stockton and Double-A Midland before a 13-game stint in the Arizona Fall League. He began 2025 with Triple-A Las Vegas and hit .321 with seven homers in 20 games before getting promoted 24 games into the A’s season.
Kurtz is already in elite company. Entering Friday, he was behind a group including José Abreu’s 36 home runs as a rookie in 2014, Albert Pujols’ 37 in 2001 and Frank Robinson’s 38 in 1956. His trajectory suggests he’ll be the face of the A’s in short order.
“You never really know what to expect when you get to the big leagues, what it’s going to be like, if you’re able to do the same things that you’ve done your whole life. It’s a whole different game,” Kurtz said. “Knowing that I’ve had success, obviously there’s a different type of confidence that comes with that.”
Langeliers also has been a strong contributor over the second half of the season.
The steady catcher since the All-Star break entered the final series of the season hitting .319/.360/.646 with 19 home runs and 18 doubles. He’ll finish the season with 30 home runs and 30 doubles. Soderstrom, the 23-year-old Turlock native, in his first full Major League season has 25 home runs and 93 RBIs while switching from playing catcher and first base to left field full-time.
Wilson, who started in the All-Star game for the American League, has stayed in the chase for a batting title with Aaron Judge and entered Friday hitting .313 on the season and will likely finish No. 2 in American League Rookie of the Year voting behind Kurtz. Butler is the A’s first 20-20 player since Coco Crisp in 2013 after signing a seven-year $65.5 million extension with the A’s in March.
The A’s are expected to focus heavily on their pitching staff in the offseason. The team at the July trade deadline dealt away star closer Mason Miller and JP Sears for prospects. The A’s bullpen entered the last four games of the season with a 2.88 ERA in 81 games dating back to June 20 after having a 6.13 ERA during their rough start to the season.
Severino and Springs are likely going to hold the top two spots of the rotation, while youngsters Jacob Lopez and Luis Morales have shown promise as possible rotation pieces in 2026.
Highlights of A’s first season in West Sacramento
Nothing is going to top Kurtz’ 6-for-6, 4-homer performance against the Houston Astros on July 25. He became the first rookie in MLB history to hit four in a game while only 21 players have ever done it.
Langeliers hit one of the most memorable home runs of the season when he took reigning Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers deep for a go-ahead grand slam. It came in the bottom of the seventh inning on Aug. 25, with the A’s trailing 3-2. It went 450 feet and led to an 8-3 A’s victory.
The slam also came during the A’s only series sweep of the season at Sutter Health Park.
Langeliers’ slam was one of two notable grand slams hit at Sutter Health Park. Kurtz on Sept. 13 blasted one of the longest home runs this season, 493 feet to left center field in a 11-5 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.
Butler’s reaction while running at second base said it all.
Center fielder Denzel Clarke missed most of the second half with a right adductor strain. But while he was with the A’s he made a series of remarkable highlight reel catches.
Attendance and other lowlights
The A’s season began with excitement in and around Sacramento before their first game March 31 when they hosted the Chicago Cubs in front of an energetic crowd of 12,119.
But the A’s lost in historic fashion, 18-3, while allowing 10 extra base hits, walking 10 hitters and allowing Cubs catcher Carson Kelly to hit for the cycle.
The team’s press conference room, a temporary metal shed built adjacent to a concourse down the left field line, went viral on social media. Though unflattering at the time, it never proved to be problematic during the season.Visiting and local media worked from a converted luxury suit with seating on a balcony. Typical seats were replaced with moveable chairs and desks that were suitable but also atypical to Major League setups.
The press situation improved to the point of the A’s announcing they would host postseason games in 2026 should the team make it, which wasn’t assured in 2025 due to constraints with media seating.
Nothing was more symbolic of where the A’s were as a organization than their team Hall of Fame induction ceremony for their “Big Three” of Tim Hudson, Barry Zito and Mark Mulder along with long-time broadcaster Monte Moore.
The fire alarm went off as speeches began, while only a few thousand were in the stands before the Sept. 13 to witness it.
Additionally, the A’s finished dead last in MLB in attendance. They had more than 10,000 fans just twice over the second half of the season.
Meanwhile, news reports and Reddit threads suggested season ticket holders have been largely unhappy with their investment in tickets.
The A’s have pledged to have more Sacramento-centric activations for home games in 2026. And they will acknowledge they are in the Sacramento region. On Sunday, the last day of the season, the team announced it would wear uniforms next year emblazoned with “Sacramento.” That was the highlight of the day —the A’s followed with a 9-2 loss to the Kansas City Royals in the season finale.
But additionally, six A’s home games will be played at Las Vegas Ballpark as the team continues to plan for its new stadium on the strip they hope to open in 2028.
This story was originally published September 27, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
