A’s return from successful road trip to smallest home crowd of the year
The Athletics returned to Sutter Health Park after their road trip through the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area playing some of their best baseball of the season, going 4-2 against the Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles.
They entered Monday’s game winners four of their last five series and seven of their last 11 games. Yet on Monday they had their smallest home crowd of the season at their makeshift home, Sutter Health Park, in West Sacramento.
Only 7,731 fans watched the A’s lose to the Tampa Bay Rays 7-4 in the first of a three-game series and drop to 52-68. And the A’s continue to average the lowest attendance in the Major Leagues at 9,659 fans per game, which is 16.3% less than their last season at the Oakland Coliseum (11,528 per game) in 2024.
“It’s never a point of discussion in terms of attendance,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said following the loss. “I mean, we’ve dealt with that in Oakland.”
The A’s chose to play their home games at Sutter Health Park, a minor league stadium with a roughly 13,800-person capacity, while they wait for the new domed stadium on the Las Vegas strip to be built. The team has said it hopes to open the 33,000-seat ballpark in 2028 after holding a ground breaking ceremony in June. The cost is believed to exceed $2 billion.
But that means the A’s are slated to play in Sutter Health Park for at least the next two seasons, while they hope to contend for a postseason spot for the first time since the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign.
However, the A’s are two weeks removed from selling off star closer Mason Miller and reliable starting pitcher JP Sears at the trade deadline for prospects they hope will contribute down the road. They’ve been in last place in the American League West since May 20.
“Obviously it’s fun to play in front of big crowds,” A’s starter Jeffrey Springs said after allowing four runs in 3 1/3 innings while getting tagged with the loss Monday, dropping his record to 10-8. “But given our circumstances, I don’t know what the capacity is here, but it’s different than other big league stadiums. It took a little bit of getting used to early on, but I think as a team we’ve handled it well.
“No matter the conditions or where we’re at, or how many fans there are, we have a job to do.”
Tyler Soderstrom kept the A’s in the game with a three-run homer in the seventh inning that cut the lead to 6-4, but the Rays strong bullpen closed the door over the final two frames. Soderstrom surpassed All-Star slugger Brent Rooker for the team lead with 71 RBI with the blast.
Soderstrom, 23, is a Turlock native who is playing his first full Major League season with the A’s after appearing in 106 games combined in 2023 and 2024 when the team played in Oakland.
“We don’t talk about (the attendance),” Soderstrom said. “We were given this situation. We’ve kinda been dealing with it all year. It’s not something that we think about. We just go out there, try and play as a team and play our best at this point.”
Catcher Shea Langeliers continued his hot run at the plate. He had two hits through five innings, including his solo homer in the fifth. It was Langeliers’ 12th home run in 23 games since the All-Star break.
The Rays hit back-to-back homers in the top of the seventh on the first two pitches of the inning to push the lead to 5. Second baseman Brandon Lowe took a fastball from Osvaldo Bido 428 feet to dead center. Then third baseman Junior Caminero hit his 33rd long ball of the season the next pitch when he hit a slider from Bido 419 feet to center.
Nick Kurtz extended his reached-base streak to 26 games with a pop-fly double to short left field in the bottom of the ninth inning.
The two teams will play again on Tuesday with the A’s starting left-hander Jacob Lopez (5-6, 3.59 ERA) against Shane Baz (8-8, 4.92) for the Rays.
This story was originally published August 11, 2025 at 11:30 PM.
