Another A's Rookie in the Midst of Breaking Out

The A's began the year with shortstop Jacob Wilson on the roster, and he quickly became the early favorite to win the AL Rookie of the Year award after challenging Aaron Judge atop the batting average leaderboards, collecting hits in bunches, along with a couple of walk-offs. He was voted the AL starting shortstop in the All Star Game, then spent some time on the IL right out of the break.

At that point, teammate and fellow rookie Nick Kurtz took over as the ROY frontrunner, leading all rookies in home runs, RBI, and a number of other key stats. While they haven't been the only A's rookies to shine this season, they're expected to be the top two finishers in the AL Rookie of the Year award.

While Luis Morales won't get much love when it comes to award season at the end of the year due to his late-season call-up, he's proving to be another solid rookie on this A's club. On Wednesday night, he completely shut down the Detroit Tigers in the team's 7-0 win, helping the green and gold complete the sweep.

This was the A's first sweep at home this season, and it came against the team that came in with the best record in the American League.

Morales again relied on his four-seam fastball in this one, throwing it 59% of the time. He ended up going seven shutout innings, needing just 91 pitches, and over that span he allowed just two hits. The first was a triple from Spencer Torkelson that centerfielder Lawrence Butler made an attempt for at the wall on a dead sprint, but the ball hit off the wall and ricocheted well towards the infield into no man's land.

Torkelson would end up stranded at third.

The only other hit Morales allowed was a single to Dillon Dingler in the fifth, but he also wouldn't advance another base. Morales also walked a pair and struck out seven in this contest.

"This kid continues to impress" A's manager Mark Kotsay said after the game. "I give a lot of credit to our pitching coach Scott Emerson and to our bullpen coach. They've been really working with this kid. He's relentless on just perfecting his mechanics, and that's really what I think is taking him to the next level."

This outing from Morales comes on the heels of a similar start against the Seattle Mariners over the weekend in which he went six frames, gave up two hits, one earned run (solo home run), didn't allow a walk, and struck out six.

Since his scoreless outing in Baltimore where he didn't allow a hit in 2 2/3 innings but walked five, he has really been able to up his efficiency, and he's also been limiting free passes.

Overall, he's 2-0 with a 1.19 ERA and a 0.97 WHIP in five outings (four starts), spanning 22 2/3 innings. He's allowed just 12 total hits in that span. He also started this year in Double-A Midland before moving up to Triple-A and held a 3.73 ERA with a 1.14 WHIP across 89 1/3 innings split fairly evenly between the two levels.

"The progress he's made to be able to go from Double-A to Triple-A to the big leagues, those are big steps. And he's met every one of these challenges. That says a lot about his character, it says a lot about his determination, and you can see it. I think he's one of the hardest working pitchers we have on the staff, day in, day out."