Though Thursday began with baseball fans up in arms about the MLB.TV website crashing just as the first games of the 2025 Major League Baseball began, it ended with folks not being able to stop talking about none other than Tyler Soderstrom.
The 23-year-old native of Turlock rose into the nationwide top ten “Trending” list on X (formerly Twitter) after blasting a pair of go-ahead home runs in the Athletics’ 4-2 Opening Day loss to the Mariners in Seattle. It was the 2020 Turlock High graduate’s first multi-homer game of his young career, and a performance that A’s ace and two-time All-Star Luis Severino described as “unbelievable.”
“So happy for him,” Severino said. “I mean, you don’t see guys like that. He seems so comfortable at the plate right now…”
Soderstrom’s first big fly came in his second plate appearance, jumping on a slider that Seattle star and former Modesto Nuts standout Logan Gilbert hung over the middle of the plate. The ball left the bat at 108.7 miles per hour and landed 432 feet away from home plate in dead center field of a sold-out T-Mobile Park.
The blast gave the A’s a 1-0 lead in the fifth inning, though two innings later, the Mariners tied things with Victor Robles sacrifice-fly.
In the top of the eighth, Soderstrom stepped into the box for his third and final at-bat, this time against right-handed reliever Trent Thornton. The left-handed hitting Soderstrom took a slider high in the zone, then turned on a 89 mph cutter, sending it 362 feet into the right field seats, a laser that traveled at 111.4 mph to make it 2-1 A’s.
The swing made him just the third player in the Athletics’ 124-year history to hit multiple home runs on Opening Day, per Sarah Langs, joining Khris Davis in 2017 and Jason Giambi in 2000.
But home runs in the bottom of the eighth from Randy Arozarena and Jorge Polanco gave the M’s a 4-2 lead and erased any advantage Soderstrom gave the A’s before their bats went quietly in the ninth.
After going 12-for-54 with a home run, four RBI and two steals over 20 Cactus League games, Soderstrom didn’t have the regular season start he would have wanted, striking out on three pitches in his first at-bat against Gilbert, though he disagreed on a the third strike in which he felt he did not go around on a check swing. The rest of the A’s lineup, meanwhile, struggled mightily, combining for just one hit on the night.
Soderstrom opted to keep his focus on the team rather than his personal accomplishments during his postgame availability.
“I think we're just focused on, you know, getting as many wins as possible. I think that's our main focus right now,” he said. “I'm not really trying to look into the past, but I'll just say, ‘One day at a time,’ and, you know, try and win a lot of games this year.
“I think spring is just about getting your timing. You know, no one really remembers spring training, so I just try to, you know, go out there and put good at-bats together and get my timing, and we're here now.”
Soderstrom played first base and was slotted sixth in the A’s lineup for his first Opening Day start.
Turlock High School has produced eight Major League Baseball players in their 119-year history. Soderstrom joined Frank Duffy and Dan Reichert in being the only to make a major league club’s Opening Day roster. Duffy did so six times from 1973 to 1979, and started four openers — in '72, '74, '76 and '77 — all as a member of the Cleveland Indians. Reichert was on the Kansas City Royals roster for three consecutive Opening Days from 2000 to 2002, though he was never the starting pitcher in the season openers.
