ST. LOUIS -- A’s reliever Joakim Soria made his 674th career appearance during Tuesday night's win over the Cardinals, passing Dennys Reyes for the most by a Mexican-born player.
Soria’s teammates and coaches celebrated the milestone before Wednesday’s game. Manager Bob Melvin called the team together and fellow bullpen member Liam Hendriks presented Soria with a cake with a Mexican flag with 674 on it.
“You have to be healthy,” Soria said. “You have to be in the big leagues. You have to perform. You have to be in the best level of baseball so it means a lot.”
Soria set the mark in style with a scoreless inning of relief in the A’s 7-3 win. The 35-year-old right-hander already holds the mark for saves by a Mexican-born reliever (220).
“It’s baseball history and if you’re around long enough, you’re lucky to see instances like that,” Melvin said. “The guys were pretty fired up about it.”
Soria is 1-4 with a 4.91 ERA in 35 appearances this season, but he hasn’t allowed an earned run in his last five games.
“I really think for him probably three or four outings that really kind of skewed his numbers,” Melvin said. “You look at the internal numbers and they’re all pretty good. The ERA is probably not where he wants it to be, but when you have a reliever and you give up multiple runs in an inning, it’s tough to come back from that. But overall he’s been pretty consistent for us.”
Soria is in his 13th season in the Majors. He was a two-time All-Star in the first of two stints with Kansas City. He has also had stops in Texas, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and with the White Sox and Brewers.
“When you first get to the Majors you want to stay,” Soria said. “You want to have a long career but you never imagine that it will be that long. It’s tough to believe when you start that you will have so many appearances in the best level of baseball.”
Wendelken optioned
A’s right-hander J.B. Wendelken didn’t get to celebrate long.
The 25-year-old earned his first Major League victory Tuesday night in relief of Chris Bassitt, but was optioned back to Triple-A Las Vegas to make room for Daniel Mengden, who got the start on Wednesday.
“He kind of knew it was coming, these guys know,” Melvin said. “I know he felt really good about that outing. For a guy that we really put in an elevated role early in the season then had some struggles, had to go down, he’s still finding himself at Triple-A, and to be put in that situation yesterday and to come through with guys on base shows him we have confidence in him and I know that he has the stuff to get it done.
"He’ll be back at some point in time and I think the outing last night will probably serve him well.”