FanPost

Spring Game #22 - A's @ Reds - First Davis's birthday as an A's!!

Rob Tringali/Getty Images

Happy Birthday, Ike!!!

Today is Ike Davis 28th birthday, and as a gift, most of his teammates will have the day off, except him... weird gift, ah?

Well, I guess that's fair taking in count he just came back last Friday from a back injury, and he will lead the handful of regulars playing today at Goodyear.

Today's lineup

A's @ Reds

As you can see, lots of Triple A bats, to support probably the best A's pitcher this Spring, Kendall Graveman. Graveman will go today allowing only 1 ER in 9.2 IPs, with 16 groundouts that includes 3 GIDPs for only 7 flyouts and 3 K's. He's been dominant, and making it very hard to send him down, and the only reason he is not a lock for the Opening Day rotation, is that the other guys competing for the 3 rotation spots open are pitching really well too, including some fans favorite, Barry Zito.

But among those Triple A bats we can find some really hot bats in this Spring, like Burns, Wendle, Carlin, Muncy and Ladendorf, with A's top prospect Matt Olson serving as today's DH, so we hope Graveman and the rest of the relievers schedule to pitch today will have plenty of run support as it has being during most of the spring.

Among the schedule pitchers for today we have Verdugo, Clippard, Rodriguez and Hutzinger, with Clippard looking to get it going after a couple of rough outings and Rodriguez pushing for a long shot to makes the bullpen out of camp.

On the Reds side, Mike Leake will get the ball, with 9 scoreless innings to start his Spring, so let's hope we can break that streak.

In the injury front, Reddick is improving from his oblique strain and he is tentative to see action again next Saturday or early the following week, which gives him just a handful of games to be ready for Opening Day, so more decisions on that end as well (Burns? Ladendorf and get Zobrist to play RF?)

Graveman will go up today trying to keep things interesting in this spring, and make the cuts decisions on the coaching staff really, but REALLY hard.

First pitch is schedule at 1:05 Pacific.