Near the end of April, I wrote that Lawrence Butler's numbers were ugly, but the advanced metrics liked him plenty. He had a .253 xBA while actually batting .186, so the contact was there, but the results weren't. Couple that with a well below average .237 BABIP and if he kept going, he'd figure it out.

The problem is, Butler veered. He's rudderless and flailing for answers. 

The Athletics called up Henry Bolte on May 12, and since that day the rookie has started 14 of 19 games, with all of those starts coming in center field. Butler's regular spot in right field has also been taken over, this time by the hot-hitting Carlos Cortes. Butler has started just three of the last 13 games.

Part of the reason is that he has continued to struggle at the plate, batting .164 with a .261 OBP and a 43 wRC+. With the A's having goals of making the postseason, they have to roll out the best lineup that they can, and right now that isn't one with Lawrence Butler in it most games. 

That said, when he gets right, he can be the type of player that can carry this team. He put up a 20-20 season in what was considered a down year for him in 2025. 

Now entering June, his BABIP has dropped to .210 and his xBA is down slightly to .235, which signals that he has gotten away from the approach he had earlier in the season. It also looks like Kotsay has been looking for specific spots to deploy Butler to get his confidence at the plate back, and for a moment on Sunday, it looked like the trick had worked. 

On Friday night, Butler came in as a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the eighth. The A's were already losing 8-1, so he wasn't being asked to come through in a big spot. This was meant to be a confidence-building at-bat. 

He got a cutter down the middle and scorched it 106.6 mph off the bat, right past the head of former teammate Paul Blackburn. It was ruled a groundout in the box score, but that was a hard-hit ball that could cause his bat to stir from its slumber. 

On Sunday Butler received the start, and in his first at-bat, he lined an RBI single the other way against Will Warren with an exit velocity of 107.6 mph. 

Those two at-bats, back-to-back — and a couple of days apart — are what can get a player going at the dish. Watching that opposite-field single, you got the sense that his turnaround was about to begin. 

In two of his next three at-bats, he grounded out to the catcher on balls he barely touched. The first one he did a half-swing where he looked to be in-between decisions — the kind of approach that has plagued him in recent weeks. His second two-one put out was more of a full swing with poor contact. 

And in between those two soft taps, he smoked another one that nearly hit the Yankee pitcher, but was caught on a line by shortstop Anthony Volpe, who was shading up the middle. 

In his final plate appearance of the day, he ended up drawing a walk on four straight pitches well outside of the zone. Having the patience to not offer at any of those was a positive sign. 

When the game ended on Sunday, Kotsay said that they would be having discussions on how to improve this team, and stated flatly that roster moves would be coming. One of those moves was to immediately option Jacob Lopez, and taking a spot in the rotation will be Kade Morris. 

We won't speculate about how much, if at all, Butler's name came up in those discussions. What we can say is that he's in Chicago, and that he made the road trip.

Those two hard-hit balls may have been enough for a player that hasn't seen a ton of playing time of late. Now we have to see if he comes out focused, making hard contact, or is still in-between decisions at the plate. At some point Kotsay will run out of runway looking for a soft landing spot.