Athletics' Opening Night Start Against Angels Goes to Frankie Montas
Frankie Montas, who came to the A’s Summer Camp having thrown the most of the Oakland starters during the baseball’s downtime, will be Oakland’s opening night starter Friday against the Angels.
Manager Bob Melvin, who delivered the news to Montas on Friday, said the rest of the rotation, in order, would be Sean Manaea, Mike Fiers, Chris Bassitt and A.J. Puk. The A’s start with four games against the Angels followed by a pair against the Colorado Rockies, all six of those games at the Coliseum.
Jesus Luzardo, who came into the spring as a member of the rotation, will have to work his way in after being held out of action for 14 days after the left-hander tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus.
“He wants it, and he’s very prepared,” Melvin said of Montas, who was 9-2 and headed for a possible All-Star berth last year before an 80-game PED suspension cost him half a season. He would only get one more start in the final week of the 2019 season. “There’s a lot to like about him.
“He throws close to 100 mph with two really good breaking pitches. And he really came into his own last year. You look at those numbers, and then pitched a good game for us late. We saw early in (Spring Training) and then early in this camp that he’s conditioned for it.”
Melvin said Montas probably knew it was coming. When the pitching probables for the two games early next week against the Giants were Manaea on Monday and Fiers and Bassitt on Tuesday, it was evident that Montas would be the man to get the opening honors, barring some strange circumstances.
“He got a big smile on his face,” Melvin said. “He’s ready to go and he’s excited about it. It’s a source of pride to be able to start the first game. There are a lot of things going on, for sure, that are different. But I think being able to pitch opening day is a special day regardless of the circumstances.”
It didn’t hurt Montas’s case that he was 2-0 with a 3.57 ERA in four starts against the Angels last year or that his career ERA against the Anaheim crew is 2.96.
Montas, 27, found himself last year after ditching his changeup in favor of a split-finger fastball. With it he gave himself an outpitch without losing any command of the fastball. In 2017-18, his first two years with the A’s he pitched in 97 innings, walked 41 and struck out 79. In the 15 games before his 2019 suspension, he threw 90 innings, walked just 21 and struck out 97.
Fiers came into camp as the man most likely to start the opener, but when he had to be held out of a couple of workouts because he’d been working with Luzardo, who tested positive for the coronavirus, that put him a bit behind schedule.
And Montas came in as if the three-plus months off never happened.
Melvin said that with Montas and the rest of the rotation scheduled and the season’s start less than a week away, it seems as if 2020, which was a season in doubt, is a real thing.
“It’s like, `Hey, this is actually going to happen,” Melvin said. “For sure. It does actually feel like, knock on wood, it’s actually going to happen. Our guys have taken this real seriously. You know we’re in a pretty good spot at this point with the virus. Guys understand that if this thing is going to be pulled off, that they have to treat is as much of a bubble as they possibly can.
“So, it really looks like this thing is going to get going. And I think everybody’s excited about that.”
Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3
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