Mark Kotsay regularly walks around the field before games to add some steps to his daily count. For the Athletics manager on Monday, that meant also surveying the field conditions at his new home ballpark.

The left-field corner had become swampy after a morning rainstorm in Northern California, but Kotsay just smiled and remained confident it would be playable by first pitch. Beyond the left-field stands, construction projects were still being completed at Sutter Health Park, all as red, white and blue banners commemorating the A’s home opener hung from the railings of the minor league stadium.

“We’ve embraced being here in every way,” Kotsay said, noting his team has already gone through opening day last week in Seattle.

“From a playing standpoint, we’re settled, right, so the nerves and anxieties, excitement of the game is now settled,” he said. “In terms of tonight and the energy that we’re going to feel from this crowd, obviously we haven’t been in this environment so it’s going to be a new experience, which is exciting.”

Even with all the change that comes with relocation, fans still lined up at entrances well before the gates opened on a blustery, cool evening. Once inside the gates and at their seats, some began chants of “Let’s Go Oakland!” as an ode to their old city.

With the A’s trailing 16-3 in an 18-3 loss, fans began hollering, “Sell The Team!” as they had all of last season as a rallying cry directed at owner John Fisher.

When a drone suddenly appeared near the left-field wall in the bottom of the seventh with Seth Brown batting, it briefly delayed the game, and veteran Athletics bat boy Stewart Thalblum decided to help thwart it.

The drone tried to lift him off the grass but Thalblum used a bat and brought it down, careful not to cut himself with the spinning blades.

Once the device had been corralled, Thalblum handed it off to a security guard.

All the A’s players wore No. 24 jerseys to honor late Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, who died Dec. 20 five days before his 66th birthday.

All-Star Lynn retires

World Series champion and two-time All-Star pitcher Lance Lynn is retiring from Major League Baseball.

Lynn was 7-4 with a 3.84 ERA in 23 starts last season with St. Louis. The right-hander was 143-99 in his career with the Cardinals, Chicago White Sox, Texas, Minnesota, Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees.

Lynn was an All-Star with the Cardinals in 2012, when he finished the season 18-7, and in 2021 with the White Sox.

St. Louis selected the former Mississippi star No. 39 overall in 2008.

Stanton will torpedo

Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton said he’ll continue using a torpedo bat whenever he returns from pain in both elbows, but also declined to say whether he thought using the new model might have caused his injury.

Last season Stanton began using the unique bats that feature more wood lower down the barrel closer to the label, shaped a little like a bowling pin.

During spring training, he seemed to hint that using the different bats could have caused pain, before later adding he didn’t know why his injury occurred.

Crochet OKs deal

Ace left-hander Garrett Crochet has agreed to a record-breaking $170 million, six-year contract with the Boston Red Sox. Crochet’s contract starts next year, and he can opt out after the 2030 season.

It is the largest deal ever for a pitcher with four-plus years of major league service time.

The 25-year-old Crochet was acquired by Boston in a trade with the Chicago White Sox during the winter meetings in December and agreed to a $3.8 million, one-year contract for this season.