LAS VEGAS -- The Athletics still have three more games to play against the Rockies this weekend in their future home area, but the signature moment of this special six-game Las Vegas Series may have just been produced, courtesy of Lawrence Butler.
Trailing the Brewers by two runs entering the bottom of the seventh inning, Butler put the A’s ahead for good by demolishing the first pitch he saw from right-hander Chad Patrick for a no-doubter that landed well beyond the center-field wall at Las Vegas Ballpark. The go-ahead two-run blast gave the A’s a 4-3 win to secure a series victory over Milwaukee.
Butler’s clutch home run was the third on the night for the A’s and 15th for the series. That matches the franchise record for most home runs in a three-game span. The last instance occurred nearly three decades ago, when sluggers Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Gerónimo Berroa and Terry Steinbach led a 15-homer barrage from June 25-28, 1996.
With offensive production unsurprisingly inflated in this hitter-friendly environment, manager Mark Kotsay noted before the game that this week’s games in Southern Nevada provide an opportunity to build confidence for an A’s lineup that has seen its share of ups and downs. There’s perhaps no hitter on this team in need of a boost of confidence more than Butler, who entered the night batting just .163 with a .489 OPS and homerless since April 29.
“The best part of [tonight] was Law,” Kotsay said. “Lawrence has been going through a tough year. For him to be the guy to step up and get the big hit to put us ahead, for him, it’s a great day. He’s been working really hard on making adjustments. The at-bats have been there. He’s hit some balls hard. He hasn’t had the luck that he’s needed to get out of this. So, he just took it upon himself to hit it over the fence.”
One homer does not cure what has essentially been a season-long slump. But for one night, we saw the joy again from Butler, who admired his Statcast-projected 463-foot bomb for a few seconds before flipping his bat and yelling into the A’s dugout in elation.
“There’s a different energy about him,” Kotsay said. “Obviously, he’s an emotional kid. We know that. We’ve watched him for the last two years, and he wears it hard. There’s nobody in that room that wants it more than he does. That moment, he needs to just really cherish it and be ready to come out Friday and continue forward.”
If you look at his Statcast page, the numbers will show that Butler has a case as one of baseball’s unluckiest hitters. Entering Wednesday, the gap between Butler’s actual batting average of .163 and expected batting average (xBA) of .241 was the largest difference of any hitter in MLB. The difference between his expected wOBA (based on quality of contact, strikeouts and walks) of .298 and actual wOBA of .228 was also the largest. Meanwhile, his actual slugging percentage (.237) and expected slugging percentage (xSLG) of .344 was the fifth-largest discrepancy of any hitter.
Butler has been hitting the ball hard and doing the right things at the plate without seeing the results. So, in some ways, watching that ball go over the fence was therapeutic for him, with that roar he let out acting as a sigh of relief.
“It felt good seeing nobody finally catch the ball when I hit it,” Butler said. “That was a great feeling. It was an even better feeling just to be able to put my team on top. All I want to do is help the team. Giving the team a lead was everything for me.”
This might have been Butler’s signature moment of the series, but his No. 1 highlight actually happened off the field one day prior. Before Tuesday’s game, Butler, a player the A’s have been heavily promoting throughout the Las Vegas community as a face of the team in the buildup to their 2028 relocation, visited kids at the Boys & Girls Club of Southern Nevada, where he had a special interaction with one of the youth program’s members.
“One boy told me that he’ll never forget that day,” Butler said. “That was a lot of fun. It was amazing. Really special to me. So, regardless of what happened in the game, I felt like I made a difference.”