Excited for Derby spotlight, Rooker preps with pregame swings -- and key blast vs. Toronto

WEST SACRAMENTO -- About three hours before first pitch on Saturday night, Brent Rooker prepared for his upcoming participation in the T-Mobile Home Run Derby by going through a three-minute practice round to simulate the experience that awaits him on Monday in Atlanta.

Setting up in the brunt of the West Sacramento heat at a temperature of 95 degrees, Rooker took what he estimated to be around 55-60 total swings off childhood hitting coach Joe Caruso -- who will be throwing to him in the Derby -- launching a myriad of homers over the left-field wall at Sutter Health Park.

“I’m tired,” a panting and sweaty Rooker said as he walked into the Athletics dugout for shade and hydration upon completing the practice round.

Whatever energy was zapped from Rooker pregame, he regained just enough of it to hit one more home run when his team needed it most in the game, sending a 389-foot wall-scraper to left-center in the fifth inning for a go-ahead two-run blast off Kevin Gausman that put the A’s ahead for good in a 4-3 victory over the Blue Jays.

Rooker, who also drove in a run in the third with a double, finished with three RBIs as he reached base in all four plate appearances.

"Great night from Rook,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “We faced a pretty good starter tonight and did our job trying to get the baseball up in the zone. Gausman really pounds the bottom of the zone and the split is effective. That at-bat by Rook, to be able to elevate that pitch and hit it out of the yard, was pretty exceptional.”

Gausman’s splitter is a pitch that Rooker has previously described as the “nastiest pitch in baseball” for its nightmarish downward movement. On Saturday night, however, Rooker managed to catch just enough of that splitter low in the zone on a 2-2 count and golf it out.

"I think that’s the first time I’ve ever hit his splitter fair,” Rooker said. “That was the big win for me. I’ve swung at it a lot and missed it or fouled it off a lot. But I actually put that one in play. That was the big positive takeaway for me there.”

Entering the day, Rooker had one hit and a walk in five career plate appearances against Gausman that ended in his splitter. The one hit was a weak 77.8 mph single up the middle last month in Toronto.

Gausman was well aware of how much his splitter had given Rooker fits in the past.

"I’ve had a lot of success against him with my split,” Gausman said. “He was definitely looking for it. Off the bat, I thought it was an out. It was a two-run homer in a big spot and the reason why we lost the game."

Now just one homer shy of the century mark for his career, Rooker’s 20th homer of the season establishes him among some of the top A’s sluggers of the past decade.

He is now the first A’s player with 20 home runs in three straight seasons since Khris Davis and Matt Olson, both of whom hit at least 20 from 2017-19.

Not a bad feather in the cap for a player who -- before joining the A’s as a waiver claim in 2023 -- had bounced around a few different organizations and was even contemplating offers to play in Japan. Since the start of the 2023 season, his first with the A’s, Rooker’s 89 homers are the ninth most in the Majors over that stretch.

"From where I was a few years ago, to be able to do that and have this kind of success over multiple years is cool,” Rooker said. “I just want to continue doing it for several years in the future, too.”

With one more game before heading to Atlanta for Monday’s Home Run Derby at Truist Park, Rooker will head into the contest with some extra confidence from both his in-game home run and the surplus of homers he hit beforehand during the practice round as he looks to become just the third Derby winner (Mark McGwire, Yoenis Céspedes) in A’s history.

The main focus was just to try to get the pacing and feel for how much time we have between pitches,” Rooker said. “You want to get all the pitches in, but you want to do it in as long a period of time as you can to get adequate rest. … I’m excited about it.”