New A's Pitcher From Houston Astros Made One Big Change in Debut

On Thursday Brandon Bielak was traded from the Houston Astros to the Oakland A's. A few hours later, the 'Stros completed their four-game sweep of Oakland. On Friday, Bielak was officially added to the A's 26-man roster, with the team optioning left-hander Hogan Harris back to Triple-A.

With the A's struggling to get innings from their pitching staff of late, having fresh arms to get through each game has resulted in a revolving door between the big leagues and the minors for the past week. Hogan Harris has been called up and sent down twice. The same goes for Easton Lucas, who was also DFA'd on Thursday to make room for Bielak on the 40-man roster.

All this is to say that with Bielak not having pitched since May 7, there was a good chance he would see some game action on Friday, and he did. The new right-hander went the final 2 2/3 innings to finish up the A's 6-2 loss in Kansas City, surrendering a two-run homer to Maikel Garcia. The pitch, a 93 mile per hour sinker, was up and in to Garcia, painted on the black of the plate. He still cranked it 398 feet over the left field wall.

From that point on, he worked 2 1/3 innings, allowing three hits (two singles and a double), and struck out one. It wasn't a shut down performance, but it was solid overall. He also kept his pitch count within reason, tossing 42 pitches, which should make him available in the next couple of days.

When the trade occurred, we said to keep an eye on whether or not Bielak continues to lead with his changeup, which he did. The change has been his most-used offering this season for the first time in his career. We also noted that Bielak's horizontal break on his slider ranks eighth in the big leagues this season, along with two other A's pitchers near the top of the leaderboard.

The thing he did differently on Friday night was that he utilized his slider a whole lot more, making it his second most-used pitch of the evening. 11 of his 41 pitches were sliders for a rate of 26%, up from 9% on the year coming into this one. In six of his 11 outings with Houston this season he didn't throw a single slider, though in his last two appearances he had started working it back into his pitch mix. Six of the 11 he threw on Friday were for strikes.

Right now it appears as though he's looking for the right mix of pitches that will lead to success. He has a 5.85 ERA on the season, but held a 3.83 ERA across 80 innings last year. If the A's can get his mix figured out, he could be another long relief option, and maybe even a spot starter. Given the A's injuries and struggles of late, that's a nice piece to have, even if he's a little bit of a work in progress.