The A's and Smokin' Joe Blanton with a 10-11 record and a 3.57 ERA take on the Twins and Francisco Liriano with a 0-0 record and a 3.86 ERA.
I pointed this out yesterday, but Liriano has given up only one walk to 11 strikeouts in his seven innings in the bigs. It's redundant to continue to say every game is the biggest game, but that's what the A's face right now. Each game is bigger than the last heading down the stretch. Hopefully the A's batters can quickly figure out the youngster.
The bad news is that Crosby isn't in the lineup.
Here is Ken Macha's lineup for the night:
Ellis
Kendall
Kotsay
Chavez
Payton
Hatteberg
Bocachica
Swisher
Scutaro
Dan Johnson gets the night off to avoid the lefty and Bocachica gets into the lineup.
The Twins counter with this lineup:
Tyner
Abernathy
Mauer
Jones
Ford
Morneau
Cuddyer
Castro
Rodriguez
Let's hope Big Joe has several more big games left in him.
LET'S GO A'S!!!!!!!
