{"id":669582,"date":"2026-04-08T04:31:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T04:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/669582\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T04:31:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T04:31:17","slug":"as-send-luis-morales-to-minors-to-work-on-control-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/669582\/","title":{"rendered":"A’s send Luis Morales to minors to work on control issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — The Athletics<\/a> optioned pitcher Luis Morales<\/a> to Triple-A Las Vegas on Tuesday, and manager Mark Kotsay said he hopes the 23-year-old right-hander regains his confidence after struggling with command.<\/p>\n

The Athletics made the move after Morales went 0-2 with a 12.27 ERA in starts against Toronto and Houston.<\/p>\n

“We talked a lot about performance and being something that we were really evaluating,” Kotsay said before the opener of a three-game series against the Yankees. “These last two games, command has been a big issue for Luis.”<\/p>\n

Morales made the Opening Day roster despite issuing 14 walks in 19 innings in five spring training starts.<\/p>\n

“We’re going back to spring training — you don’t look at performance in spring training — but you look at the quality of the pitch-making and he didn’t have a great spring,” Kotsay said. “We felt like he could make the adjustment to being able to fix some mechanical things that he needs to work through.”<\/p>\n

Athletics pitchers head into Tuesday’s game with 58 walks in nine games this season. Only the Astros have issued more.<\/p>\n

Morales allowed three homers against the Blue Jays on March 29 and issued a career-high six walks Saturday against Houston, while also allowing eight hits.<\/p>\n

“Just the lack of confidence overall, too, you could see it the last start,” Kotsay said. “So, I think it’s a good reset for Luis. My expectation is he goes down and he gains his confidence back and he’ll be back with us at some point.”<\/p>\n

Morales signed with the Athletics in January 2023, during the international signing period. He was 4-3 with a 3.14 ERA in 10 appearances (nine starts). In those games, Morales issued 18 walks in 48\u2154 innings.<\/p>\n

Morales was scheduled to start for the Athletics this weekend against the Mets. Kotsay did not say who will fill his spot in the rotation.<\/p>\n

To replace Morales on the active roster, the Athletics purchased the contract of reliever Joel Kuhnel from Las Vegas. Kuhnel did not appear in the majors last season and is 4-3 with a 5.86 ERA in 82 career appearances with Cincinnati, Houston and Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — The Athletics optioned pitcher Luis Morales to Triple-A Las Vegas on Tuesday, and manager Mark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2288],"tags":[5,2328,2304,4,2305,2303],"class_list":{"0":"post-669582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","10":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mlb-playoffs","13":"tag-mlb-postseason"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116367214837472591","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}