Laureano also delivers souvenir to young spectator
BOSTON — Between moments helping the Oakland Athletics to a win Thursday, right fielder Ramón Laureano brightened a young fan’s day at Fenway Park.
In the middle of the fourth inning, Laureano jogged out for defense holding a bat, which he carried to the short right-field wall and handed into the stands near the foul pole.
The bat was for Luca Rascona, 5, at the game with his dad, Brian. Turns out, an inning earlier, Laureano had tossed a ball into the stands for Luca from a couple of feet away. Luca tried to glove it, his dad said, but instead it hit him near the eye.
“He started crying,” Lascona said later at their seats near the famous Pesky Pole. “Laureano felt bad.”
Luca was OK and Laureano soon swung by with a 33.5inch maple bat, the ax-handle type Laureano prefers. Written on it: “Sorry for hitting your eye. Get well champ!” Laureano also autographed the bat.
“He’s a happy kid,” Lascona said.
Luca was attending his first game at Fenway, with his family visiting from Long Island, N.Y., said Lascona, who is in sports talk radio at WFAN.
His favorite team? “The Mets,” said Luca, who was sporting a Mets cap. Favorite players? “Francisco Lindor, (Pete) Alonso and Jacob de Grom.”
Asked by his dad what he’d tell his mom about the game, Luca replied: “I got my bat.”
Laureano, after the A’s 4-3 win over the Red Sox, was asked why he’d brought the bat out to the stands.
“It hurt me that I felt like I hurt him — with no intention, I just tossed him a ball,” Laureano said. “In a couple of years, he will catch it, though. I think he’s a little younger and I didn’t know.”
Piscotty update: Right fielder Stephen Piscotty (left calf strain) is slated to run bases Friday and Sunday. If he passes that test the A’s will “look at some form of games for him and a schedule to ramp back up,” manager Mark Kotsay said. Piscotty has missed 39 games since injuring his calf rounding third base.
“The re-injury rate is much higher on a calf injury,” A’s head trainer Nick Paparesta said this week. “You can use other compensatory muscles in our body to favor it a little bit to get by. So it’s something we do take a little bit slower and we’re a little more conscientious about.”
On Lowrie: Jed Lowrie did not play in the final six games of the road trip due to left wrist and shoulder soreness, stemming from the Guardians’ Ernie Clement running into his outstretched arm on a play at first base in Cleveland.
As of Thursday, Kotsay said Lowrie felt “as if he’s strong enough to swing left-handed, and he worked through some things yesterday right-handed so may be available (to hit righty) as well today.” Lowrie was 5-for-42 in 11 games before his injury and is hitting .207 this season.