The rebuilding Oakland A's have been a hard watch this season. They're 34 games under .500 and with a minus-137 run differential. They enter Tuesday's game at the Texas Rangers on an MLB-high nine-game losing streak, but they've called up their top prospect in catcher Shea Langeliers. The Rangers are -125 at Caesars Sportsbook.
Langeliers was part of the package acquired from Atlanta this offseason in the Matt Olson trade. The 24-year-old Langeliers is ranked as the No. 28 overall prospect in the spor t by MLB.com. He's Oakland's highest-rated prospect and the fifth-highest catcher overall.'The ninth pick in the 2019 draft was batting .283 with 19 home runs and 56 RBI in 92 games with Triple-A Las Vegas of the Pacific Coast League. Langeliers was named MVP of the Futures Game during All-Star weekend in Los Angeles in July. He has a power grade of 60 and arm grade of 70 on the 20-80 scale.
It will be interesting how manager Mark Kotsay handles Langeliers' workload. Sean Murphy (.244, 13 HRs, 48 RBI), arguably Oakland's best player, is a catcher. Therefore Langeliers might play more at DH than behind the plate. His first-big league-at bat should come against the Rangers' Kohei Arihara, who is making his 2022 debut. The right-hander was 2-4 with a 6.64 ERA in 40 2/3 innings last year.
The A's need all the offensive help they can get. They are last in the majors with a .214 batting average, 29th in runs (388) and 27th in homers (98). No regular has a better average than Murphy's .244. During the nine-game skid, Oakland has scored more than three runs only three times.