The A's and Esteban Loaiza with a 4-7 record and a 6.50 ERA take on the Rangers and Edinson Volquez who has a career 0-4 record and a 14.21 ERA. The division race continues tonight with the A's having an opportunity to really push themselves ahead of the pack.
Volquez is a guy who has a lot of velocity and ability but seems to be wild. In his limited appearances he has 10 walks to the 11 strikeouts. Sometimes the wildness seems to screw up the A's. They'll get their walks, but not be able to drive it the runs because they can't seem to figure out where the ball is going. A game that comes to mind is the game against Chad Loewen of the Baltimore Orioles. That guy only went five innings and allowed two runs but the A's only got one hit off of him because I don't think he even knew where the ball was headed at times. He walked six in five innings, but the A's couldn't seem to capitalize.
The lineup looks like this tonight:
Kendall
Kielty
Bradley
Thomas
Chavez
Payton
Swisher
Scutaro
Ellis
I'm hoping that Kotsay doesn't have a serious problem considering his hot hitting of late. Mr. Obvious says, "Holy crap, this team has a lot of injury issues."
Any way, the Rangers lineup looks like this:
Matthews
Young
Lee
Teixeira
Blalock
DeRosa
Stairs
Kinsler
Barajas
The A's get their first look at the "new Rangers" since they acquired Carlos Lee and A's former fan favorite Matt Stairs. Surprisingly, Loaiza has dominated the Rangers roster in hte past. The only players who've hit Loaiza well is Stairs and Young. So if there was ever a night where Loaiza can build off a good start and get some confidence, this could be the night despite Texas's insanely strong offense.
LET'S GO A'S!!!!!!!
