Oakland Athletics: Adam Rosales Getting Opportunity to Contribute Offensively

Oakland Athletics utility man Adam Rosales has now gotten the opportunity to play every day and get regular at-bats.

This comes in the wake a fractured wrist to the Oakland Athletics‘ shortstop Marcus Semien.

The worry was not that Rosales wouldn’t be as good defensively. In fact, he’s probably a bit of an upgrade as Semien has only been playing at the position for two seasons, while Rosales has been mainly a utility infielder and now a full-on super utility man in the league for 10 seasons.

Now in his second stint with the Athletics, Rosales has to assume Semien’s role. Semien, whose defense is still a work in progress, also just happens to have that pop in his bat. In 2015 he hit 15 long balls, and in 2016 that number increased to 27 bombs.

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Rosales, who owns a .229 career batting average, would be an obvious downgrade offensively but since taking over for Semien he has been hitting homers and producing runs in other ways via sacrifice flies and bunts.

In 12 games so far this season, Rosales is batting .278 with two home runs and six RBI.

Since taking Semien’s spot at shortstop he’s played in eight games, and five of them were wins for the A’s.

And each win involved some help from Rosales. In the five straight games the Athletics won, Rosales had six hits in 17 at-bats.

His slash line over that span was .363/.386/.765, including a double and two home runs.

His first homer of the season was a two-run, game-tying blast in the sixth inning last Tuesday.

Rosales is notorious for his speedy home run trots, something he says he’s been doing since Little League. In this case he had to slow down while rounding second base so as not to run past new Athletic Trevor Plouffe, who had been on first base.

As a rule, Rosales tries to stay 10 feet behind the runner in front of him in these situations, but with Plouffe being new to Rosales’ constant hustling, things were a bit different.

“All of a sudden, I’m looking back, and he’s sprinting,” Plouffe said. “I tried to hold him up, but there’s no stopping that guy. Luckily, I beat him. Just barely.”

Rosales, a fan favorite at the Oakland Coliseum, especially because of his home run trot and all-around happy disposition, had this to say:

“Obviously, it’s a always a little comical when I’m running around the bases with someone in front of me,” Rosales said. “Can you imagine if I hit a grand slam?”

If you have ever seen Rosales run the bases after hitting a home run, you know what he is talking about.

Luckily his second home run of the year on Saturday was a solo shot.

With Rajai Davis nursing a sore hamstring, Rosales got the nod to lead off. He hit one out of the yard to start the game and it was a good thing that no one was in front of him this time.

Rosales broke the MLB Statcast record (which he may have already held) for the fastest home run trot, running the bases in a mere 15.9 seconds. Take a look:

That’s one fast home run trot.

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That’s the thing about “Rosie,” as he is affectionately referred to by the Oakland crowd – he’s always hustling. Even just to and from the dugout between innings you’ll see him sprinting.

And so far after taking over for Semien, he’s played his usual solid infield defense and has been producing runs like never before in his 10 years in the big leagues.

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