The A's and Chad Gaudin with a 10-11 record and a 4.47 ERA take on the Rangers and Kevin Millwood with a 9-11 record and a 5.31 ERA.
It's kind of funny that the A's happen to be taking on the Rangers in Oakland tonight. It was three years ago tonight that Rangers reliever Frank Francisco threw a chair into the A's crowd and hit a woman in the nose. Francisco hasn't exactly had a stellar career since the incident. But I wonder if he's going to be paying for the woman he hit to attend the game as his guest tonight? Ah, probably not.
Chad Gaudin has been going downhill quickly since the All Star break. Before the break he was 8-3 with a 2.44 ERA and since the break he has been 2-8 with a 7.01 ERA. I've been stating over and over again that Gaudin just hasn't looked like the same pitcher with the same break on his pitches as he had before the break. I'm hoping that it's just because this is his first full season as a part of a major league rotation, but he's becoming one of my major concerns when thinking ahead to 2007.
Any way, the A's starting lineup looks like this:
Stewart
Barton
Swisher
Cust
Ellis
Johnson
Scutaro
Hannahan
Bowen
I love the decision to try and get Barton as many ABs as possible and batting him second. Why not maximize his ABs this year and give him that taste? Not only that, but his patience should help at the top of the order if the rest of the hitters would wake up.
The Rangers lineup looks like this:
Catalanotto
Kinsler
Young
Byrd
Botts
Blalock
Murphy
Saltalamacchia
Vazquez
All the Rangers need to do is get Grudzielanek and Mientkiewicz on their team and they will officially have some of the hardest names to spell in baseball. Course, Young, Byrd and Botts kind of mess that up...
LET'S GO A'S!!!!!!!
