Oakland Athletics Turn to Sonny Gray for Leadership
Oakland Athletics manager Bob Melvin announced on Monday, that Sonny Gray will take the mound when the Athletics open the 2015 baseball season at home, April 6 against the Texas Rangers.
This will be Gray’s second consecutive Opening Day assignment, but this season’s start bears little resemblance to last season’s.
No longer will Gray be looked upon as the young upcoming phenom. The Athletics will need him to provide leadership, and be a steadying force in a revolving rotation.
When Gray made his Major League debut July 10, 2013, he was seen as the kid with the devastating curveball and a bright future.
The Athletics rotation was being led by wily veteran Bartolo Colon, and the oft-injured but talented Brett Anderson. Though the team had high hopes, there were no heavy expectations thrust upon the young flame throwing right hander.
Gray’s major league debut was supposed to be little more than a peak into the future. There were no plans of relying on the young hurler — especially in a possible late season pennant race.
However, as the season went on and Gray continued to dominate, he quickly let it be known that the future was now.
The blossoming hurler showed so much poise and fortitude down the stretch that no one blinked when Bob Melvin named him game two starter of the American League Division Series against the Detroit Tigers, and their Cy-Young award winner, Justin Verlander.
Gray did not disappoint, matching Verlander with eights innings of four hit shutout ball, in the Athletics 1-0 victory.
Fast forward to two years later, and the landscape of the Athletics rotation has changed. Extensively.
The leadership of Colon and Anderson has been replaced with a mixture of young arms and battle tested veterans.
The Athletics will look to Scott Kazmir for that veteran presence in their revamped rotation.
Kazmir has impressed early and often this spring. In the opener of the Bay Bridge series against the San Francisco Giants, Kazmir allowed only one run over six innings. That effort saw him improve to 2-0, with an ERA of 1.00 in four starts, this exhibition season.
Veteran leadership is great, but any good rotation needs that “top dog”. It needs hat pitcher a manager can count on every fifth day, who will take the ball, and give his team the needed innings and effort to end the day on top.
This is the role which has been handed Sonny Gray in 2015.
"“He’s made for this, it’s kind of who he is. He’s extremely competitive, he’s talented, loves the spotlight games. If anyone was made for it. It’s him”, Melvin said when discussing Gray’s opening game start."
Gray is coming off an impressive 2014 campaign. He went 14-10 with a 3.08 era, and was twice named American League Pitcher of the month — in April and August.
“For a guy who sat back and did his thing and performed, pitched like a veteran from the moment he was here, now he’s actually taking on a little more of that role, as he should”, said Melivin
Gray may be young of age, but he does already have his share of big game experience. There aren’t many pitchers who can say they’ve gone head to head with Verlander and the Tigers — in their first taste of postseason baseball.
The 25 year-old right hander threw a six-hitter in powering Oakland to a 4-0 Wild Card clinching victory over the Texas Rangers, in the last game of the 2014 regular season.
There is little doubt that Gray has the ability to bring his best stuff in the biggest moments. He has already proven he doesn’t get small in big moments and instead he raises his level of play.
Oakland will be relying on Gray to not only show up in those big moments, but to be steady and fierce in those tight mid-season games that truly define a long, hard big league marathon.