Giants play A’s in Sacramento for first time: Fireworks, storylines and more
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- Giants face A’s in West Sacramento for season's most anticipated home series.
- Limited Friday tickets as July 4 game promises postgame fireworks.
- A’s rumored to be considering trading Luis Severino amid poor home results.
One series stood out when the Athletics’ schedule released last summer for their first season in West Sacramento. It’s coming this Friday, when the San Francisco Giants come to town for Fourth of July weekend.
The A’s former Bay Area neighbors will technically be making their second appearance at Sutter Health Park since the A’s moved to California’s capital region from Oakland. The Giants played the Sacramento River Cats, their own Triple-A affiliate, in an exhibition back in late March just before the A’s regular season began.
And proving the Giants’ popularity in Sacramento, that game had a reported attendance of 14,014, which would be more than any A’s home game at the stadium to date.
The A’s largest home crowd came this season — the first of at least three years the A’s are slated to play in West Sacramento before their planned move to Las Vegas — against the Yankees on Mother’s Day when 12,224 showed up to Sutter Health Park.
It was the last time the team announced a sellout, and just the fourth of their 42 home games entering this weekend. The other sellouts: the preceding two games against New York, plus opening night March 31 against the Chicago Cubs.
This weekend’s games are expected to be among the biggest of the season. All three games are scheduled for 7:05 p.m.
Tickets and fireworks
The A’s will have “Patriotic Postgame Fireworks” following Friday’s game as part of the July 4 celebration. Their display was not impacted by the recent fire and explosion of a fireworks storage facility in nearby Esparto, an A’s spokesperson said.
As of Thursday, the A’s official ticket website had few tickets available for Friday, available for $212 through $292, with more options available for Saturday and Sunday ranging starting at $162. Secondary ticket sites such as StubHub and SeatGeek had tickets for the series. Tickets on StubHub as of Thursday were starting at $178 for Friday and $100 for Saturday or Sunday; SeatGeek had tickets listed starting at $156 for Friday, and $78 for Saturday or Sunday.
Tickets for the outfield lawn can be purchased the morning of games starting at 9 a.m. for $25.
Teams riding waves of mediocrity
The A’s returned home Wednesday following a three-city, nine-game road trip with an off day on Thursday. They dropped the series finale against the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday, 6-5, to finish the road trip 4-5. The A’s won one game in each of their three-game sets against the Detroit Tigers, Yankees and Rays.
The A’s in recent weeks have bounced back from one of their worst stretches in team history. They’ve gone 13-13 over their last 26 games after losing 20 of the previous 21, something they hadn’t done since the 1940s. And their 36-53 record heading into the series is their best record in their first 89 games since 2020.
The Giants, meanwhile, entered Thursday’s action with a 46-41 record and having lost seven of nine games, including four straight before Wednesday night’s 10-inning win over the Arizona Diamondbacks. Their trip to West Sacramento will wrap up a three-city road trip that included trips to play the Chicago White Sox, where they dropped two of three, and a four-game set against the Diamondbacks that concluded Thursday.
The Giants entered Thursday in third place in the National League West and a half-game out of the last Wild Card spot. And since trading for former Red Sox slugger Rafael Devers in mid-June, San Francisco has gone 5-10.
Severino not mincing words on Sacramento ballpark
The A’s highest paid player and projected ace starting pitcher Luis Severino has continued to make headlines for his outspoken disdain for playing at Sutter Health Park.
While the A’s were in New York last weekend, the former Yankee and Met hurler said, according to the Athletic: “It feels like a spring training kind of game every time I pitch, and every time other guys pitch,” noting the small crowds and inability to escape the heat with the clubhouse beyond the left field wall.
He followed up by saying: “If you ask me how I feel pitching at home, I’m not going to lie to you. Because at the end, you guys are going to figure out if it’s a lie or not. My job is here to try to pitch and, every time you ask me a question, be honest with you guys. So, that’s what I did.”
Severino’s unhappiness with playing in a minor league ballpark, which has dated back months, led to a report from USA Today saying the A’s are hoping to trade Severino before the July 31 trade deadline. However, the team might have a problem offloading Severino given the three-year, $67 million contract he signed in the offseason, which became the richest in franchise history.
Severino enters his scheduled start Saturday against the Giants with a 2-9 record and 5.09 ERA. However, if the A’s do attempt to trade Severino, they might try to convince teams his 3.04 road ERA (compared to 6.79 ERA at Sutter Health Park) is an indication he’ll be better than his numbers with the A’s might indicate.
Start times and weather
There will be no afternoon games this weekend while the weather is expected to be reasonably comfortable for early July in West Sacramento.
The high on Friday is expected to reach 85 degrees, while Saturday’s is 89 and Sunday’s is 93, National Weather Service forecasts showed Thursday. Sacramento’s average high temperature for July 4 is 92 degrees, according to the weather service.
The Giants as of Thursday had not announced their starting pitchers for the weekend series. The A’s will start JP Sears (6-7, 5.09 ERA) on Friday, Severino (2-9, 5.09) on Saturday and Jacob Lopez (2-4, 2.88) on Sunday.
