Former Arizona Wildcats OF Cal Stevenson to make Major League debut with Athletics

Wednesday is going to be a very U of A day in the Oakland Athletics organization.

Former Wildcat Cal Stevenson has been called up to the big leagues and will start in center field for Oakland against the Los Angeles Angels. He’ll bat ninth for the Athletics in the 12:30 p.m. PT game in his Major League debut.

Additionally, recently drafted UA catcher Daniel Susac is scheduled to make his professional debut for Oakland’s California League affiliate in Stockton.

The 25-year-old Stevenson was hitting .305 with three home runs and eight RBI in 16 games for Triple-A Las Vegas, where he’d been since early July when he was part of a trade between Oakland and the Tampa Bay Rays. The left-handed hitter began the year with Tampa’s Triple-A team in Durham, NC, where he batted .265 with two homers in 57 games.

Stevenson was a 10^th round pick of the Toronto Blue Jays in 2018 after playing two seasons at the UA, where he hit .302 for the Wildcats. He is the third ex-Arizona player to make his MLB debut this season, joining JJ Matijevic with the Houston Astros and Chase Silseth with the Angels.

Silseth made his debut in May, less than a year after pitching for the UA at the College World Series and then getting picked in the 11th round of the 2021 MLB Draft.

Susac, whom the A’s drafted 19^th overall in July, went 3 for 6 in a pair of games in the Arizona Complex League, an instructional/rookie league played at Spring Training complexes in the Phoenix area, before getting the call up to Stockton.

He’ll likely finish this season in Stockton, a Single-A team, as Oakland’s top two prospects are catchers currently playing at Triple-A (Shea Langeliers) and Double-A (Tyler Soderstrom).