WEST SACRAMENTO -- Jacob Wilson and Aaron Judge are polar opposites as hitters. One is a lanky 6-foot-2, 190-pounder, while the other towers at 6-foot-7 and 282 pounds. One has a total of three career home runs, the other holds the American League record for most homers in a season (62).
When the Athletics and Yankees kick off a three-game series at Sutter Health Park on Friday night, however, Wilson and Judge -- statistically speaking -- will headline that matchup as the top two hitters in baseball after Wilson’s latest impressive feat in what continues to be a stellar rookie campaign.
Wilson collected four hits, including a pair of doubles, in Wednesday’s 6-5 loss to the Mariners at Sutter Health Park. It was the 23-year-old shortstop’s first career four-hit game, and the 4-for-5 effort pushed his overall batting average to .357 on the season, which ranks second-highest in the Majors behind only the .412 mark Judge carried into New York's Wednesday night contest with the Padres.
“It’s a great feeling, for sure,” Wilson said of being side-by-side on the leaderboard with the reigning AL MVP. “Obviously, everybody has seen what [Judge] is doing. It’s pretty incredible watching him do his thing on a daily basis. To be up there with him is pretty cool for me. I’m excited to play against him this week and see what it looks like in person.”
You don’t draft a player sixth overall like the A’s did with Wilson in 2023 unless you see star potential. After glimpses of it in his big league stint last season, the ingredients for stardom are fully melding together in 2025. Wilson now has six multi-hit performances over his last eight games, going 16-for-34 (.471) in that stretch.
The insane bat-to-ball skills are also fully on display this season. His strikeout against Mariners closer Andrés Muñoz to end Wednesday’s game was only his seventh this season. Among qualified Major League hitters, that strikeout total is second-lowest behind three-time batting champion Luis Arraez (3).
Wilson's surge has forced him to the top of the lineup. He hit leadoff on Wednesday for the fifth time this season, and A’s manager Mark Kotsay indicated that Wilson will likely stay in that role for the foreseeable future.
“I think you’ll see Jacob up there now,” Kotsay said. “Jacob’s earned it. We talked about, ‘How long are you going to wait? What are you going to do? Are you going to move him?’ Jacob has shown enough over the last week. He’s walking and taking pitches, and, obviously, swinging the bat really well.”
With eight hits in three games, Wilson was the shining light in an otherwise frustrating series against Seattle. After missing out on a chance to move into a tie with the Mariners for first place in the AL West on Tuesday by blowing a late lead, the A’s blew another late lead on Wednesday in a game they led 5-1 at one point. Following another solid outing by A’s No. 14 prospect Gunnar Hoglund (according to MLB Pipeline), who limited Seattle to two runs on five hits and a walk with three strikeouts across 5 1/3 innings in his second Major League start, Mitch Spence came on in relief in the sixth and surrendered a three-run homer to Rowdy Tellez that cut the A’s lead to one run. Two innings later, the Mariners took the lead for good with two runs off reliever Noah Murdock.
Despite back-to-back losses, Kotsay took away the positives from the series in that this young A’s squad that won just 69 games last season and lost over 100 games the previous two years is hanging tough with the division’s best. Of the A’s seven games against Seattle this year, six have been decided by two runs or fewer.
“Dropping this was tough because we had late leads,” Kotsay said. “But we also showed we’re going to be a challenging team for them all season. That’s a good sign. … The growth we’ve shown in these 30-plus games is that we’re continuing to get better as a team in this division that can compete against the best teams right now.”
The schedule does not ease up for the A’s over the next couple of weeks. They’ll welcome the Yankees for three games this weekend, then head on the road next week for matchups against the Dodgers and Giants.
“It’s going to be a great test,” Wilson said. “We’ll be able to go and show that we can hang with those top teams. … We’re going to keep going with the momentum that we have in this clubhouse and, hopefully, get some wins.”