WEST SACRAMENTO -- There was a point not long ago this season when Lawrence Butler was statistically one of the worst hitters in baseball, a circumstance the Athletics never expected for one of the key members of their young core.
Butler’s struggles reached a point where there was speculation as to whether it might be best to send him down to the Minors for a reset, as the right fielder entered the All-Star break with just five home runs and a sub-.200 batting average.
The A’s opted to allow Butler the opportunity to figure out his scuffles up here, and he’s looked a lot more like the Butler we all expected heading into 2026 as of late, including Wednesday night’s 7-4 A’s victory over the Twins at Sutter Health Park as he slugged a Statcast-projected 425-foot solo shot and reached base twice.
Simply put, this version of Butler over the past month is a completely different version than his early-season form. Since July 28, he’s now hitting .310 (30-for-100) with seven homers, six doubles and 16 RBIs over his last 28 games.
“I couldn’t be happier with Lawrence,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “This kid has been grinding. He plays with emotion. He doesn’t want to disappoint anyone, especially the team. … Really proud of the way he’s responded to a lot of adversity and continues to get better.”
Earlier this week, Kotsay alluded to adjustments Butler had recently been working on with A’s director of hitting Darren Bush. The mechanical tweaks include trying to be more direct to the baseball in the zone by spreading his legs out a bit wider at the plate and limiting the head movement in his swing.
“He made the adjustment that we wanted to see,” Kotsay said. “He’s basically just trying to touch [the baseball] now. … Early in the year, there was a time when he was trying to do more. Trying to hit the ball 500 feet as opposed to 380 feet. I think we’re seeing that type of player right now. He’s taking his hits. He’s using the middle of the field. He’s not trying to pull the baseball.”
Case in point: Wednesday’s homer off Twins left-hander Kody Funderburk. Falling behind in the count early, Butler got his arms extended on a 1-2 sweeper elevated in the zone and crushed it over the wall in left-center, an area of the ballpark that has typically been reserved for Nick Kurtz and his several majestic homers over the past couple of years.
“The approach of the at-bat was to drive the ball to left-center off a tough lefty who primarily works away with a good slider,” Kotsay said. “He stayed on it. That ball, Kurtz hits balls like that.”
Butler couldn’t recall the exact timeline of when he started up those adjustments at the plate with Bush and when the results started to translate. Instead, he pointed to that same start date of his hot streak on July 28, when he called a players-only meeting inside the clubhouse before a victory over the Red Sox later that night.
“Ever since that day, it has kind of turned around for all of us in here,” Butler said. “That day, we established who we want to be as a team, as an organization and as players.”
The player Butler wants to be is a leader for this club, a role that can be difficult to fulfill when you’re severely underperforming at the level he was over the first half. Butler was in a bad place just a couple of months ago, which makes his resurgent second half that all the more impressive.
“Never give up,” Butler said. “It’s a long season. I was hoping that around this time we would be in a playoff push, but it is what it is. … You have to go out there every day and put up a good at-bat regardless of the score or the record. Compete every day.”
Now, Butler is swinging it well, and the A’s are playing much better, having won four of their past six series. They made life miserable for a playoff-contending Twins squad by taking two of three, and they’ll get a chance to spoil some more playoff dreams over the next month with matchups against playoff-hopeful teams like the Rangers, Mariners, Blue Jays, Guardians and Astros still remaining.
“We’re trying to ruin some seasons,” Butler said. “Send some people to Cancun early. Give everybody a little early vacation.”