In an unexpected moment, two Mercer Bears face off at the MLB level

In the heat of the Sacramento night and during a blowout between the Atlanta Braves and the Athletics — not to mention well past midnight over on the east coast — two Mercer Bears met on the biggest stage.

If any Maconites stayed up late to watch the Athletics wreck Atlanta out west Tuesday night, they might have noticed an unexpected treat in the late innings.

Austin Cox, a 2018 draft pick by the Kansas City Royals out of Mercer, was on the mound for the Braves in the late stages of the 10-1 throttling when Athletics rookie Colby Thomas strolled up to bat as a pinch hitter. Thomas, an outfielder, was drafted out of Mercer by the then-Oakland franchise in 2022.

Though Thomas played multiple years after Cox’s time at Mercer, both are former Bears nonetheless.

“This is a Mercer-on-Mercer matchup in the big leagues,” play-by-play man Wiley Ballard announced to viewers and his color commentator CJ Nitkowksi.

“Show no mercy, Austin Cox!” Nitkowski quipped in response as Thomas stepped into the batter’s box. “For Austin Cox, this becomes about some bragging rights at the alumni game.”

The showdown between the two Mercer standouts sparked a conversation about the Bears between Nitkowski and play-by-play man Wiley Ballard. Nitkowski even quizzed Ballard on who Mercer’s all-time leader in “Wins Above Replacement” was — former Brave Cory Gearrin leads the pack with exactly 4 WAR, it turns out — in an amusing segment.

Ballard and Nitkowski also mentioned Thomas’ high school career at Valdosta and his Georgia native status.

“It must be a thrill for the 24-year-old who just made his debut eight days ago, now facing the team he presumably grew up rooting for,” Ballard said on the broadcast.

The two TV announcers mentioned some other Mercer players to reach the majors, even bringing up talented first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, who played at Mercer at one point but technically does not count towards the WAR trivia — otherwise he would easily lead Bears alumni with 12.1 WAR — since he was drafted out of Mississippi State, not Mercer.

Nonetheless, Atlanta’s commentators discussed the Macon university and its alumni with ease as two of those alumni duked it out. It was an interesting matchup, as the left-handed pitcher Cox is attempting to reestablish himself this season with Atlanta while Thomas is fighting to extend his first-ever MLB stint, which he started off in a 1-for-10 slump.

As all the conversation unfolded, so did the battle. Cox pulled ahead early with a stellar backdoor slider that painted the outside corner, but Thomas took the second pitch in the dirt to even things up at 1-1.

Cox hurled the third pitch in at 95 mph, but Thomas was unphased — he turned on the heater and hit it sharply, but it was pulled foul to make it 1-2. 

The left-hander then wisely leaned on the breaking ball. 

Thomas barely fouled off the next pitch before he finally struck out swinging at a nasty curveball from Cox on the fifth pitch of the at-bat. Braves catcher Sean Murphy collected the ball in the dirt and tossed it over to first to complete the strikeout.

In the midst of such a one-sided game, the battle between two Bears provided some pleasant trivia for Macon’s Mercer fans, though local Braves fans likely wished Atlanta’s other pitchers had fared as well as Cox did.

Cox has made a case to stay a part of Atlanta’s relief corps for the foreseeable future, albeit over an admittedly small sample size. The lefty now has a 2.57 ERA through seven innings pitched as of Wednesday and still has not walked a batter, a luxury rarely afforded managers by their bullpen arms.

Crucially, Cox also boasts a strikeout rate of nearly 40%, as he has K’d 11 batters over that seven-inning span since first getting called up last month. Though the Braves have shuffled Cox between the major league roster and Triple-A Gwinnett, it seems the Mercer alum might have a spot on the team for a longer period.

Thomas took his slump to 1-for-11 with the strikeout at the hands of his fellow Bear. It remains to be seen whether the Athletics will keep him up if he continues to struggle or return him to Triple-A, where he dominated at the plate to the tune of a .297/.365/.542 slash line in 2025.

Thomas did make a splendid play in his first major league game a week ago when he sprinted to catch a fly ball before throwing a dart to home plate to nab a runner, tumbling over in the outfield with the momentum of his throw in the process.