Athletics Montas American League Player of the Week After Beating Mariners, Astros
Oakland A’s starting pitcher Frankie Montas won the American League’s Player of the Week award Monday after posting his first two wins of the season
Last Monday he allowed one run on four hits in seven innings in beating Seattle, then he came back Saturday by shutting out the Astros for seven innings, allowing just two hits.
For the week, he threw 14 innings, struck out 14, allowed six hits and four walks in winning twice.
Montas, the A’s opening day starter back on July 24, is due to start again Friday against the Giants in San Francisco.
In 2019, Montas emerged as one of the A’s rising stars. He had a 9-2 record and seemed headed to the All-Star game. Then he got slapped with an 80-game PED suspension, and he’d pitch in just one game the rest of the season.
Saturday was the first day he said he felt like he was close to being the pitcher he was the first half of 2019.
“I feel good, I feel good; I’ve been feeling good the last two games,” he said after the game. “I was training for this during the quarantine.”
Manager Bob Melvin said “there’s a reason we pitched him on opening day.”
“That’s two times in a row and throwing seven innings,” the manager said. “He had really good command today. It looked like he was in control, and he had a good splitter and slider.
“When teams look at the matchups against us, they don’t particularly look forward to facing him.”
For the season, Montas is 2-1 with a 1.57 ERA in four starts spanning 23.0 innings pitched. He has allowed 14 hits and nine walks to go along with 22 strikeouts over that span. Among qualified American League pitchers, Montas ranks third this season in innings pitched, fourth in ERA, and tied for seventh in opponents’ batting average (.175).
Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3
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