Happy Friday Athletics Nation!<\/p>\n
After beginning the season as the team\u2019s Opening Day center fielder, Denzel Clarke has seen his 2026 season get worse and worse as the season has progressed. The gifted defender struggled in the batter\u2019s box from the jump and was slashing just .170.\/.228\/.417 with no home runs at the time he suffered an injury to his right foot, which ultimately required a trip to the injured list.<\/p>\n
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Some fans hoped that the time off could be a sort of mini-reset for the young outfielder as he looked utterly lost facing major league pitching. With his amazing defense at a critical position Clarke doesn\u2019t need to be a force with the bat, but he can\u2019t be as big of a black hole as he was during the first month of the season. Getting away from the bright lights of the major leagues and getting back to basics down in a less stressful environment like the minor leagues seemed like as good as any idea to get him back into a rythym in the batter\u2019s box. The early returns, though small, were encouraging as he went 4-for-6 in two games for Stockton in Single-A then 1-for-2 in his first game with the Aviators.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately his rehab stint will be cut short. He hasn\u2019t suffered a setback with his foot, but instead has suffered what the organization is calling a \u201csignificant hamstring strain\u201d, which will cost him the next couple of months at a minimum:<\/p>\n
It\u2019s another tough break for the 26-year-old outfielder. Clarke jumped onto the scene last year and A\u2019s fans immediately saw him flash the leather as he became a near-daily highlight reel in center field. The A\u2019s haven\u2019t had this gifted a defender on the grass in quite a while and though the bat didn\u2019t exactly strike fear into opposing pitchers the team was happy with that as long as they continued to get Gold Glove caliber defense up the middle. Things were cut short earlier than anticipated though as he suffered a season-ending adductor strain in mid-July, ending his year and also depriving the A\u2019s of a longer look at the light-hitting center fielder.<\/p>\n
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This hamstring strain doesn\u2019t bode well for Clarke in the near or long term. His struggles with the bat were already a cause for concern entering this season and those worries are much larger now after seeing a regression with the stick this year. Add in the fact that the A\u2019s have a shiny new young center fielder named Henry Bolte and the situation is quickly developing into a quagmire. Clarke\u2019s defense is spectacular but the team just can\u2019t stomach him in the lineup on an everyday basis. It\u2019s like playing with eight players in a nine-man lineup.<\/p>\n
Bolte doesn\u2019t have the ceiling of Clarke\u2019s glove but he\u2019s no slouch with the glove in his own right, and he\u2019s always been a better hitter than Clarke at every level. Bolte is off to a solid start to begin his big league career and now that he doesn\u2019t have to worry about Clarke coming back anytime soon the A\u2019s should give him plenty of run in center field. If he continues to progress and takes ahold of the position then the organization will suddenly be in a tough situation regarding Clarke. He looked like the center fielder of the future as recently as last summer, but he could soon be the odd man out of a crowding outfield picture the A\u2019s have going for them right now. It\u2019ll be fascinating to see how manager Mark Kotsay and the team handle things when Clarke is finally healthy and ready to return.<\/p>\n
We got a new series tonight as the team heads further south to take on the San Diego Padres<\/a>. It\u2019ll be Walker Buehler<\/a> for the Friars while the A\u2019s have yet to make it official but it\u2019ll likely be Jeffrey Springs<\/a> on the bump tonight. First pitch is at 6:40. Until then, have a great weekend everyone!<\/p>\n A\u2019s Coverage:<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n MLB News and Interest:Best of X:<\/p>\n Very interesting:<\/p>\n Time to swap out Lopez for Jump?<\/p>\n Things may be moving in that direction\u2026<\/p>\n Followed by an Arnold promotion to Triple-A?<\/p>\n Stadium\u2026. update?<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not even close!<\/p>\n ICYMI:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Happy Friday Athletics Nation! After beginning the season as the team\u2019s Opening Day center fielder, Denzel Clarke has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2391],"tags":[537,5,1416,49,14905,71706,631,632,3239,4,3226,137,18,1949,115],"class_list":["post-705804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-athletics","tag-athletics","tag-baseball","tag-center-fielder","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-denzel-clarke","tag-henry-bolte","tag-j-t-ginn","tag-jacob-lopez","tag-jeffrey-springs","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-athletics","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-the-athletics","tag-walker-buehler"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116618770753954993","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705804","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=705804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}