The A's look for a 2-0 series lead today after the HUGE win yesterday. They send Esteban Loaiza to the mound. Loaiza finished the season with an 11-9 record and a 4.89 ERA. The Twins counter with Boof Bonser who finished the year with a 7-6 record and a 4.22 ERA.
Don't think that Bonser is a guy who will just roll over for the A's. He finished the year going 4-1 with a 2.63 ERA. This isn't going to be as much of a pushover as many have predicted.
The A's lineup is unchanged:
Kendall
Kotsay
Bradley
Thomas
Chavez
Payton
Swisher
Scutaro
Ellis
Get used to seeing it because I imagine that it will be like this for the rest of the Twins series.
The Twins lineup looks like this:
Castillo
Punto
Mauer
Cuddyer
Morneau
Hunter
White
Tyner
Bartlett
We'll see if Loaiza can capture some of that August magic. Maybe he can take advantage of the Twins aggressive nature like Zito did yesterday.
We shall see. I don't want to call this game critical, but it would be really nice to be coming back to Oakland with a 2-0 lead and Haren and Harden as the next two pitchers going against Radke and Garza.
LET'S GO OAK-LAND!!!!!!!!
