Welcome to Sliders, a weekly in-season MLB column that focuses on both the timely and timeless elements of the game.
The Athletics are the hottest team in the American League since a week before the trading deadline. It’s true — from July 24 through Thursday, the green & gold gang from West Sacramento has gone 21-10. It’s as if the baseball gods want to prove to us, yet again, that we really know nothing about this game.
Or maybe the A’s have found a good luck charm in a player unique in the annals of the sport. Two days before their surge began, the A’s promoted Carlos Cortes from Triple-A Las Vegas, where he was leading the Pacific Coast League in hitting at .322 with a 1.017 OPS.
That’s impressive, but lots of players lead their league in hitting with a strong OPS. Only one position player, according to MLB, has ever switch-thrown from multiple positions in the same game: Cortes, who did it in Baltimore on August 10. He played right field as a left-hander and third base as a right-hander.
“I didn’t know it at first,” Cortes said by phone the other day, “and then a couple guys doing an interview were talking about it and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense.’”
Cortes, 28, is a natural left-handed thrower. When he was 8, his father, Juan, encouraged him to throw righty, as well, to optimize the positions he could play. It wasn’t something he picked up immediately.
“We started consistently doing it for years and years,” Cortes said. “I mean, it was every single day for six-plus years. And then about when I got to 14, I became pretty natural with my other side. But my motor skills (are) all right-handed, so I think I was a little bit blessed in that aspect where it was just a little bit easier.”
Carlos Cortes makes a catch while playing the outfield left-handed last month. (Justine Willard / Athletics / Getty Images)
Anthony Seigler, a Milwaukee Brewers utility player, has switched throwing hands in a minor-league game, appearing as both an outfielder and catcher. And while switch-pitching is unusual, it is not unprecedented.
Greg Harris became the first modern pitcher to use both hands in a game, finishing his career that way in 1995. Switch-pitcher Pat Venditte appeared in 61 games for six teams, including the A’s, from 2015 to 2020, and the Seattle Mariners drafted a switch-pitcher, Jurrangelo Cijntje, in the first round last season.
Cortes touched 90 mph or so as a high school closer in Winter Park, Fla., but he played several defensive positions and the New York Mets liked him best at second base. They took him in the 20th round in 2016, but Cortes instead went to the University of South Carolina, where he played outfield and hit .274/.378/.528.
When the 2018 draft came around, the Mets chose Cortes again, in the third round, and got their wish. He signed as a second baseman and played there for two years at the Class-A levels before asking to focus on the outfield.
He uses his natural side there, but because lefties almost never play second, short or third (they’d be facing the wrong way), Cortes is a right-handed thrower in the infield.
“It’s pretty amazing,” said the Mets’ Brett Baty, a minor-league teammate. “He’s got a stronger arm lefty, but he’s a really good thrower with his right hand, too.”
Baty added: “It’s strange — I don’t know any other switch-throwers, but I know a bunch of switch-hitters.”
Cortes bats only left-handed — reasoning, he said, that it was better to learn how to hit lefties from the left side than to try to perfect and maintain two different swings. He hit solidly over the past two seasons at Triple-A Syracuse (.783 OPS in 2023, .786 in 2024), then signed with the A’s as a minor-league free agent.
“When the A’s called, I said that’s a great organization to get to and a good opportunity to play in the big leagues — and to get to hit in the PCL,” Cortes said. “And here we are.”
Cortes has hit .294 for the A’s and made 12 starts — 11 in right field, one in left. As for the infield cameo, the A’s had used a pinch-runner for third baseman Gio Urshela while trailing the Orioles in the top of the ninth inning. When they took the lead and the game continued, Cortes — who had entered the game for defense in right field — replaced Urshela at third.
Cortes, who takes infield practice roughly every other day, does carry a right-handed infield glove. But teammate Max Schuemann had one handy on the bench in Baltimore, so that’s what Cortes took to the field.
The inning included two strikeouts, a walk and a ground out to second, so no action came his way. Still, Cortes accomplished an MLB first — but he’s not ready to make a career out of ambidextrous fielding.
“I would like it to be just in an emergency, for now,” he said.
A new way to spell relief
When Rolaids introduced an annual award for relief pitchers in 1976, the formula was somewhat primitive. Here’s how Mel Allen explained it a few years later on “This Week In Baseball”:
The math would change over time, but winners were still based purely on statistics regarding saves. The award lasted through 2012, and two years later, MLB established its own awards, named for Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman and selected by former relievers.
Last week, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America announced that it will also elect a Reliever of the Year for each league, starting in 2026. The voters will be writers, naturally, not former pitchers. In my colleague Jayson Stark’s story about it, this quote stood out:
“We were all closers,” one of the Rivera/Hoffman voters said. “So all we do is vote for the guys with the most saves. You guys have a chance to get this right.”
That anonymous ex-reliever overstated things a bit — only nine of the 22 winners led their league in saves — but almost all recipients have indeed been closers. Evaluating the entire pool of relievers, especially those high-leverage setup guys without the “S” by their names in the box score, is more nuanced.
Voters will pick their own areas of emphasis, of course, but I might prioritize availability, run prevention and keeping people off base (not necessarily by strikeout). Statistically, that could mean at least 60 innings, with an ERA no higher than 2.00 and a WHIP no higher than 1.00. Let’s make ERA+ the tiebreaker.
Using those guidelines only, here’s how the winners would have looked in each of the past five full seasons:
2019: AL — Will Harris, Houston; NL — Kirby Yates, San Diego
2021: AL — Andrew Kittredge, Tampa Bay; NL — Blake Treinen, Los Angeles
2022: AL — Emmanuel Clase, Cleveland; NL — Evan Phillips, Los Angeles
2023: AL — Félix Bautista, Baltimore; NL — Brusdar Graterol, Los Angeles
2024: AL — Emmanuel Clase, Cleveland; NL — Ryan Walker, San Francisco
Some of those relievers were closers, but their 10 seasons averaged 20 saves apiece. The 10 winners of the Rivera/Hoffman awards, for those same years, averaged 38.5 saves.
There’s nothing bad about saves. There can be an important psychological impact, for both teams, of knowing that a single, lockdown presence will be there at the end. But just from the rudimentary list above, the new BBWAA award has a chance to recognize the reliever who simply does the best job — whether or not he piles up saves.
Gimme Five
The Phillies’ David Robertson, on facing Hall of Famers
David Robertson resumed his career this month, returning for his 17th season and third stint with the Philadelphia Phillies. He ranks second to the Los Angeles Angels’ Kenley Jansen on the active list for appearances, with 868 through Thursday.
“The type of shape he’s in helps him,” said Phillies manager Rob Thomson, who has known Robertson since the Yankees drafted him in the 17th round from the University of Alabama in 2006. “He looks better than when he was a kid. I think that’s part of it. He’s had a lot of success, so I don’t think things stress him out a lot. This half-year gig could be a good thing for him.”
While Jansen has pitched in more than 900 games, Robertson has actually faced more different hitters: 1,050, to be exact, including 10 already in the Hall of Fame. That group includes Adrián Beltré, Ken Griffey Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Sr., Todd Helton, Chipper Jones, Joe Mauer, David Ortiz, Scott Rolen, Ichiro Suzuki and Jim Thome. They combined for a respectable .259 average off Robertson, but never hit a home run.
Here are the five matchups Robertson recalls best:
Ken Griffey Jr. (1-for-1): “I should have gotten him out. He took that beautiful swing of his and hit it off the end of the bat. It came right at me and it was kind of knuckling. I panicked because I didn’t know if he hit it hard or not and I’m already shaking because I’m in old Yankee Stadium facing Ken Griffey Jr.! Bob Sheppard is like, ‘Now batting, Ken Griffey, Jr.,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t throw the ball over the plate.’ Talk about your heart rate being through the roof. And then I literally clicked it off my glove and he legged it out for a single. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I had a chance to get Ken Griffey Jr. out, and I blew it!’”
Vladimir Guerrero Sr. (2-for-7, no walks, 4 strikeouts): “The scouting report on Vladdy was: ‘Just throw it as hard as you can and hope for the best because he’s gonna hit it no matter where you put it.’ There’s no rhyme or reason to him.”
Suzuki and Robertson became teammates in July 2012 after Ichiro was traded by the Mariners to the Yankees. (Otto Greule Jr. / Getty Images)
Joe Mauer (2-for-13, 2 walks, 4 strikeouts): “He hit me right in the back one time, went off my belt and A-Rod caught it in foul territory for an out. I remember it because it hurt so bad. I still have a dent in my bone from it. I threw a curveball, and I think this is when I was tipping, and he knew it was coming. And it was a hanger. Joe Mauer never leg-kicks, but it looked like he had his leg up to his chin before he swung. I was like, ‘Oh, god, it’s coming back at me,’ like it was in slow motion. I threw it and immediately turned, and it hit me right in the belt. I had a leather belt on and I felt the crunch.”
David Ortiz (5-for-16, 2 doubles, 2 walks, 6 strikeouts): “Sometimes you had warnings in those games, so it limited what you could throw — seriously, there’s a lot of times that happened. But yeah, first of all, Papi’s last hit off me was a bunch of crap, OK? It was a pop fly that landed that should’ve been caught. I’ll bet the catch probability was 100 percent. But he hit a laser off me one time in New York that was really well-struck. One of my better pitches too, back when I was throwing hard. For a big guy, his hands moved so fast, so you had to be careful coming in on him.”
Ichiro Suzuki (2-for-3, 1 strikeout): “I remember I finally beat Ichiro with a pitch — he didn’t hit it into a hole, he hit it right back at me and I thought I had it and it knuckled off the wet grass in Seattle and I literally whiffed on the whole thing. Didn’t even get a glove on it, and of course he legged it out. Fastest guy alive.”
Off the Grid
Teddy Higuera, 6+ WAR season, 200+ K season
The Milwaukee Brewers’ Freddy Peralta was the first pitcher to 15 victories this season, which stands to reason: he’s the No. 1 starter for the team with baseball’s best record. Peralta is 15-5 with a career-best 2.68 ERA, and it’s a lock for the Brewers to pick up his $8 million club option for 2026.
That would be Peralta’s ninth season in Milwaukee, matching the tenure of the best pitcher in club history: Teddy Higuera. That’s going by bWAR, anyway, and Higuera compiled 30.3 — almost all of it in the last five seasons of the 1980s.
From 1985 through 1989, Higuera’s bWAR trailed only Roger Clemens and Bret Saberhagen, who grabbed four of the five AL Cy Young Awards in that stretch. (Frank Viola won the other.) Higuera actually was the majors’ bWAR leader in 1986, with 9.4, while recording 207 strikeouts. That qualified him for a spot on last Saturday’s Grid.
Yes, wins above replacement is an imperfect metric that wasn’t even around when Higuera played. But his five-year run was splendid by traditional stats — he went 78-44 with a 3.28 ERA — and the Brewers soon rewarded him with a four-year, $13 million contract starting in 1991.
Alas, Higuera was all but finished by the start of it, and pitched just 125 painful innings, with a 6.34 ERA. Apparently he was widely criticized for earning so much while producing so little, but rotator-cuff surgery will do that to a guy.
“I didn’t want to hurt; I wanted to pitch,” Higuera told the Associated Press at spring training in 1994. “I’ve worked hard because I want to come back. It’s difficult when you have a big operation and doctors say you might not pitch again. I could have taken the money from my contract and gone back to Mexico. I don’t want to do that. I want to stay healthy, pitch and win games and help the Milwaukee Brewers.”
Higuera would win only once more, and pitched his final few games as a reliever in lopsided losses. But his brief, brilliant prime remains unmatched in Milwaukee.
Classic clip
Paul Wagner’s near-miss, August 29, 1995
We keep hearing that hitting is really hard these days. The whole National League is struggling to produce one .300 hitter, with only the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman (.302) currently above the mark.
Yet there’s one thing every team has done in every game this season: get a hit. We’re a month away from witnessing the first season without a no-hitter in 20 years.
No-hitters, of course, can be excruciatingly hard to finish, as the Cincinnati Reds’ Nick Martinez found out in late June and the Cleveland Guardians’ Gavin Williams learned in early August; both pitchers lost no-hitters in the ninth inning. For this week’s clip, let’s roll it back to this date 30 years ago, when Pittsburgh Pirates righty Paul Wagner — en route to an MLB-high 16 losses — narrowly missed.
With two outs in the ninth, Wagner stood one strike away from becoming Pittsburgh’s most celebrated Wagner since Honus. But Colorado’s Andres Galarraga bounced a hard-breaking slider up the middle — just past Wagner, whose motion had taken him out of fielding position — for an infield single.
Wagner settled for his only career shutout. His performance stands as one of 49 no-hit bids in the expansion era that were broken up with two outs in the ninth.
Three decades later, the Pirates are still waiting for a complete-game no-hitter. The last to do it for the franchise was John Candelaria in 1976. The Pirates had a combined gem by Francisco Cordova (9 innings) and Ricardo Rincon (1 inning) in 1997, but while Cleveland has the longest active streak without a no-hitter (dating to Len Barker’s 1981 perfecto), no team has gone as long as Pittsburgh without a pitcher tossing one by himself.
Paul Wagner was a strike away from a no-hitter for the Pirates in 1995.pic.twitter.com/wr09LqZs1E
— Nick Cammuso (@npc210) June 14, 2025
(Top photo of Carlos Cortes playing infield: Justine Willard / Athletics / Getty Images)