Rerouted to A's Roster, Drew Rom Steps Into Bullpen Void

The A's claimed Drew Rom off waivers from the Milwaukee Brewers earlier this week, and he joined the club on Wednesday, tossing a scoreless inning of work against the Tampa Bay Rays. But when he initially arrived at the airport after being claimed, his destination was Triple-A Las Vegas, not Sacramento with the big-league club. "Drew was stuck in the Atlanta airport [Tuesday] night," Athletics manager Mark Kotsay said after Wednesday's game. "Originally he was on his way to Vegas. We brought him here, which was great. Long flight, long night, and to go out and go through the top of the order the way he did — that was impressive."  Rom was officially claimed by the A's on August 11, and that night they ended up using Yunior Tur for a pair of innings, limiting his availability for the club on Wednesday. Tur has given up 17 earned runs in 4 ⅔ innings in the big leagues this season, looking overmatched at times. Some of the struggles have come because of suspected tip pitching, while others have been due to leaving fastballs in the middle of the plate. With a veteran pitcher with big-league experience available, the A's made the move to bring up Rom. The move also coincided with José Suarez, another left-hander, landing on the IL.  In his A's debut, Rom needed 13 pitches to retire the Rays lineup, and two of those offerings were his splitter, good for a 15.4% usage rate. While he has thrown more total splitters in the past, this was the largest percentage of his pitch mix that the splitter has occupied in his career.  The A's also had him relying on his four-seamer a little bit less. With Milwaukee, he was usually sitting around a 70% usage each time he took the mound, but on Wednesday that dipped to 53.8. It's a small sample of pitches and a one-game sample against a contact-oriented part of the Tampa Bay lineup, but these are things to keep an eye on. At the very least, is this something that the A's wanted to change slightly because of the opponent, or because of how the ball tends to fly in Sacramento? Another option could be that his four-seam velocity was down. In his last relief appearance with the Brewers in July, he was sitting at 93.1 mph. With the A's, he was down to 90.8 mph.  In addition to the four-seamer, he was mixing in his sinker (23.1%), splitter (15.4%), and sweeper (7.7%).  There is an opportunity for Rom with the A's the rest of the way as the club searches for pieces for 2027's roster. Mark Leiter Jr. was serving as one of the best arms for the club against left-handers when he was healthy — a right-handed pitcher who could neutralize lefty bats.  Left-hander Hogan Harris has reverse splits, with lefties batting .287 off him while righties are batting just .207. Suarez had success against left-handers, with a .227 batting average against, but he'd also started faltering before landing on the IL.  Rom's first outing was a success, but the real test will be consistency and whether or not he can sit down lefty bats. If he passes those two tests, he could answer a critical question for the A's bullpen heading into 2027.