TORONTO -- Jerry Blevins is headed to Atlanta.

The A’s announced on Sunday that the 35-year-old left-hander was traded to the Braves for cash considerations or a player to be named. Blevins had an opt-out clause in his Minor League contract coming up at the end of the month.

Blevins spent the first seven seasons of his big league career with the A’s before spending time with the Nationals and Mets. In his 12 years in the Majors, he has a 3.52 ERA over 564 games and 463 innings. The lefty specialist had a 4.85 ERA in 64 appearances with the Mets last year, with 41 strikeouts over 42 2/3 innings.

Blevins signed a Minor League free-agent deal with Oakland in February.

Though the A’s do not have a left-hander in their bullpen, it appeared the writing was on the wall for the southpaw when he was not called up when Ryan Buchter was sent down last week. Blevins appeared in seven games at Triple-A Las Vegas this season and posted a 1.69 ERA over 10 2/3 innings, with four walks and 16 strikeouts.

Switching it up
After losing to the Blue Jays on Saturday for the fifth straight time in the past nine days, A’s manager Bob Melvin decided to shake up his lineup a little bit, going right-handed heavy against right-handed starter Trent Thornton for Sunday’s game.

“Just switch it up a little bit,” Melvin said. “We’ve been having a tough time, and when guys are going through a little bit of a slump, you get some other guys in there. And we don’t want [Mark] Canha sitting around too long even though we’ve had a string of righties, and [Chad] Pinder’s been about as consistent a guy as we have. We’re just trying to get the best lineup for a particular day.”

Oakland has been 8-3 this season in games in which the opponent has started a lefty, compared to a 6-12 record against right-handed starters, and Melvin is hoping that starting a lineup with eight righties and a switch-hitter can help to change the tide on Sunday.

“That lineup has [been productive],” the A’s skipper said. “And most of these guys will tell you, most of the righties will tell you, you come up against right-handed pitching and it’s not foreign to you. So it’s sometimes more the left-left matchup where you get a tough lefty and you haven’t seen as many lefties, at least for me, that I worry about most.”

Toronto pride
Liam Hendriks has had two stints with the Blue Jays in his nine-year big league career, and he has incredibly fond memories of the time he spent in Toronto before joining the A’s. He was part of the first team in more than 20 years to send the Blue Jays back to the postseason in 2015.

“It’s nice because there are people in the crowd who say, ‘We wish you were here; we wish you would come back,’ and it’s nice that I’ve been gone for four years now and I still feel like I made a decent impression while I was here,” Hendriks said. “I love the fans here. … I loved my time here.”

The 2015 season with Toronto made it easier for Hendriks to see the potential teams can have, even when they aren’t sitting atop the standings halfway through the year.

“I was talking to Marco [Estrada, his teammate with the Jays and A’s] about ’15, and we were a .500 team at the [Trade] Deadline,” Hendriks said. “But you would have walked into that clubhouse and thought we’d never lost. That was the vibe we had. It didn’t matter what was going on, that didn’t change.

“And we were by far and away the best team in baseball after the Deadline. You can’t really replace that sort of hype around a team. We were the first team to get back to winning in Toronto. It was a cool experience.”

Though the hype Hendriks and the A’s saw on Friday for Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s debut for the Blue Jays wasn’t quite at playoff level, it was an impressive showing in Toronto.

“There was a lot of media,” Hendriks said. “But it wasn’t as sold out as it was with the playoffs. There was definitely a buzz around, and whenever the guy came to the plate, it was impressive how the fans got to their feet, but it’s hard to compare. Not much can compare to the atmosphere of Game 5 of the ALDS, or that hype.”

Injury updates
• Estrada (lumbar strain) is rehabbing in Arizona, and on Sunday, Melvin said, “He’s still a little bit sore, as far as that goes. By the end of yesterday, when he got some treatment, he felt a little better. But he’s not playing catch yet.”

• Matt Olson (right hamate surgery) took batting practice with the team in Toronto, and Melvin believes there’s a “good chance he’s going to go out [to Triple-A] on Tuesday. He’ll take batting practice with us tomorrow, and the plan right now is for him to go out on Tuesday.”

• Lou Trivino (right thumb injury) threw off a mound again on Sunday. “He feels pretty good so hopefully sometime in Boston,” Melvin said of when he might appear. “Not promising anything yet, but looked like he got after it a little bit more, and I’d say he’s close.”