Athletics Legend Dallas Braden Says Firing Pitching Coach Was the Easy Way Out

The Oakland Athletics—well, the Sacramento Athletics now, I guess—made a change that felt inevitable. They fired pitching coach Scott Emerson, and Dan Hubbs will take over for the rest of 2026. The numbers were ugly. Their ERA sits at 5.21, which is 29th in baseball. They’ve given up the second-most hits per game and walked 372 batters, fourth most in the league. At 41-55, someone had to take the fall.

Dallas Braden, the guy who threw a perfect game for this franchise and knows how brutal it is to pitch for them, didn’t hold back. He went on social media and basically said what everyone in the clubhouse was probably thinking: you can’t fire 26 players, so you fire the coach.

Braden calls out the real problem

“In this industry, like many industries, you get hired to get fired,” Braden said. “When there’s a lack of performance, you can’t fire all of the players. Unfortunately his job gets called into question.”

He wasn’t done. Braden pointed at the real issue nobody in the front office wants to talk about: the ballpark. The A’s are playing in West Sacramento this year, and Braden compared pitching there to throwing on the moon. The numbers back him up. On the road, the pitching staff is middle of the pack, sometimes even top third. At home? Completely different story. It’s a bandbox, and the ball carries in ways that make pitchers look worse than they actually are.

Braden made a point to thank Emerson for everything. He talked about studying game film together in Single-A. Emerson has been with the organization since 2002, and Braden said he helped define what Athletics pitching even means. But in the end, performance matters, and the decision was made.

Does this actually fix anything?

Probably not. You can swap pitching coaches all you want, but if your rotation is getting shelled because the park plays like a launching pad, that’s not a coaching issue. That’s a roster and stadium problem. The A’s have some promising young bats, sure. But their pitching staff has been a mess all season, and it’s not like Hubbs is walking into a great situation.

The team hasn’t said whether Hubbs will get a shot at the full-time job in 2027. For now, it’s a trial run. And for Emerson, it’s another reminder of how the business works. You get hired to get fired, like Braden said. Sometimes you’re just the guy standing there when the blame needs to land somewhere.