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OAKLAND — Jesús Luzardo showed up to his first big league start without one of his most powerful weapons: his slider. Sure, he threw a good one to Joey Gallo in the first inning, he lucked into a backdoor one against Scott Heineman that earned a strikeout in the fifth, but he just couldn’t get a feel for his disorienting, cutter-like breaking pitch.
“I was glad to get a strikeout on (Heineman), but wasn’t too happy with how it felt,” Luzardo said.
What makes the A’s 22-year-old phenom so compelling is not only his ability to plow through any and all of baseball’s best lineups, but his ability to do so without all the tools in his box.
Luzardo didn’t necessarily need his slider. He spun his 98 mph fastball, 99 mph sinker and 90 mph changeup into five shutout innings with five strikeouts against the Texas Rangers Tuesday night. Luzardo wouldn’t get a win in his first big league start, either. The A’s wouldn’t put up any runs until Matt Chapman’s game-tying opposite field home run in the seventh. They’d win it on Stephen Piscotty’s walk-off grand slam in the ninth, sealing the A’s 5-1 win — they’ve won four straight, moving them to 7-4 on the season.
Add to the long list of 2020’s oddities: The A’s are the first team in MLB history with two walk-off grand slams within the first 11 games of a season. The first came on Opening Night courtesy of Matt Olson’s 10th inning swing. Piscotty’s invoked a more socially distanced and conscientious celebration at home plate than Olson’s. Live and learn.
There’s more beneath the surface of Piscotty’s historic swing; the A’s outfielder, who struggled through a .118 average through his first five games, is starting to find his stride. With one out in the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded of course, Piscotty just wanted to make contact. Keeping it simple proved to be his saving grace.
“That was great from Stephen, too, with all the injuries he had in spring, trying to get back,” manager Bob Melvin said. “His at bats are getting better and better.”
Luzardo, T.J. McFarland, Joakim Soria and Yusmeiro Petit went ballistic in the clubhouse when Piscotty’s slam slipped over the centerfield fence. Luzardo joined his relievers indoors after exiting the game after throwing 76 pitches. Due to an especially shortened camp after contracting coronavirus, Melvin set Luzardo’s limit to 85 pitches. The Rangers put up some tough at bats against him, digging into some deep counts that challenged the rookie, tagging him for two hits and two walks.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s leadoff single in the third was one of them. He moved to second on a ground out and dared catcher Sean Murphy on a pitch that fell beneath the catcher’s feet. Murphy rifled a throw to Matt Chapman at third, who laid down a perfect tag on Kiner-Falefa to eliminate the threat.
“Thanks for saving me, Murph,” Luzardo said he told Murphy. “It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last.”
Luzardo redeemed his two-error performance in an outing against the Colorado Rockies with an athletic defensive play on Robinson Chirino’s high chopper. He caught it off balance and connected with Matt Olson on a cross-diamond throw off his back foot.
“That was difficult,” Luzardo said, shaking his head. “I don’t know how I did it.”
Despite the magnitude of his moment, the tense low-scoring game, Luzardo was loose and chill.
“You’d never know it was a day he’s pitching,” Melvin said. “It’s his first big league start, certainly if there were nerves he didn’t show it. And a lot of times the nerves would show in the first inning, and he was anything but.”
But, we knew Luzardo had nerves of steel.
When he made his Major League debut in a hostile, jam-packed Minute Maid Park in Houston last September, Luzardo danced through baseball’s best lineup. He was unfazed, despite giving up a home run in the second at bat, displaying the maturity scouts had praised.
Asked the last time he remembered being scared, Luzardo quipped back without reservation.
“When I was eight, maybe nine,” he said. He was afraid of a Little League pitcher he and his friends called “Husky,” real name unknown, who threw so hard Luzardo feared one of the kid’s heaters would bruise him.
“I think that kind of scared me straight to not ever be scared again,” Luzardo said.
A sea of cardboard and a struggling Rangers lineup greeted Luzardo Tuesday nearly a year after his debut. The only cheers came from a peanut gallery of players hunkered under tents who golf clapped after his first out, an Elvis Andrus groundout. It just felt strange, a momentous beginning to a career that could rival some of baseball’s best arms seen live by only a handful.
Again, none of this fazed him.
In an unprecedented situation, in the strangest of environments, without all his pitches, Luzardo showed again that he’s unafraid of the big league stage.
Clearly, the big leagues should be afraid of him.
