From First Place to Last: Injuries Have Derailed the A's Most Hopeful Season Yet

When the calendar flipped to May, the Athletics were sitting atop the AL West with a roster that finally looked ready to compete. Jacob Wilson was an All-Star-caliber shortstop challenging Aaron Judge for the batting title, Brent Rooker was anchoring the middle of the lineup, and Sacramento had itself a genuine baseball story. When the calendar flips to September, the A's are 53-86, tied with the Angels for last place in the division, and their two most important hitters are on the injured list.

The setback nobody wanted

It's been a stunning collapse. The A's entered 2026 with real expectations — postseason talk and a .500-or-better goal were the stated aims as late as the 50-game mark. But a brutal June and July, punctuated by a nine-game losing streak, sent them spiraling from division leaders to sellers. They finished June 12-15, suffered a July swoon that dropped them to 41-55 at the break, and never recovered.

Now, in the season's final month, the news gets worse. Shortstop Jacob Wilson, the team's lone All-Star representative this year, is expected to miss the remainder of the 2026 season after dislocating his left shoulder in May. He dealt with complications in his right thumb and knee ever since, and he's now on the 60-day injured list. Wilson leaves behind a .266/.298/.388 slash line with seven homers and 37 RBI over 320 at-bats — solid numbers, but a shadow of the player who looked like a batting-title contender in the spring.

Rooker, meanwhile, sits on the 60-day IL with a bone bruise in his left knee after a season that never quite got off the ground. His .200 average and .670 OPS over 180 at-bats underscored just how much the Athletics have relied on him — and how little they've received.

The injury report is a roster-wide headache: Shea Langeliers and Tyler Soderstrom are on the 10-day IL, while Nick Kurtz, Luis Severino, and others are out long-term. The A's have cycled through 21 batters and 25 pitchers this season, a turnover rate that makes continuity impossible.

What's left to evaluate

For a team playing out the string in the second of three planned seasons in West Sacramento, the final month was supposed to be about evaluation. The problem? You can't evaluate a core that isn't on the field. With Wilson and Rooker shelved, the A's are forced to run out lineups that won't resemble their 2027 opening-day roster.

The bigger issue is the pitching, which has been an unmitigated disaster. The staff owns a 5.46 ERA with a 1.49 WHIP, allowing 803 runs while the offense has scraped together just 602 — a -201 run differential that ranks among baseball's worst. Over the last 10 games, the ERA has ballooned to 5.85. In the current series at Texas, they've surrendered eight runs in back-to-back losses, dropping them to 2-6 over their last eight contests.

There's a bright spot or two buried in the rubble. The A's showed brief flashes at home. But those moments feel increasingly like exceptions. With today's game at Globe Life Field carrying a 7.5-run total and the A's installed as significant underdogs, the market has clearly priced in the gulf between these two rosters.

The road ahead

At 100,000-to-1 championship odds across multiple books, the A's are playing for pride and individual development. The harsh reality is that this rebuild — one that briefly looked ahead of schedule — has absorbed a serious blow. Wilson's shoulder injury, in particular, is cause for genuine concern entering 2027. Shoulders don't always heal cleanly, and for a 24-year-old whose value is tied to elite bat-to-ball skills, any lingering issues threaten to derail the franchise's timeline.

The Athletics will get healthy eventually. Rooker should be back next spring, and Wilson's age is on his side. But as the losing continues in the final weeks of 2026, the question isn't whether this team can salvage the season — it's whether the injuries they're accumulating now will define the next one. For a franchise searching for its first winning season in Sacramento, that's the most sobering reality of all.