Hi everyone, and welcome to the FRIDAY NIGHT game thread! I hope you have all had a great short week, and if you haven't; it's over now. The A's are in Minnesota for a three-game September series, and I still can't look at that stadium and not remember the games in October of 2006. That memory still makes me smile.
Speaking of remembering, today is September 11th, and I remember baseball being a great healer eight years ago. I know it's been posted and talked about all day, in every outlet, but I just thought I'd make a mention here too. You will notice the ubiquitous red hats worn tonight in a tribute.
In other baseball news, Jeter has not broken the record yet because God and/or Mother Nature does not like the Yankees. It's raining in New York.
Today's Rajai Watch stands at .307 and Clay Mortensen will be your pitcher for the A's, facing Nick Blackburn. I think the A's have a great chance today, if you ignore the bottom third of the lineup. We'll see how that goes. Like most young pitchers, Mortensen had one bad inning his last time out, and he will be looking to improve on this tonight. He'd probably also like a win for his record this season. He should be at an advantage; he has never faced the Twins. Then again, the Twins have Mauer and Morneau and we have Patterson and Pennington.
And now I am going to celebrate this gorgeous September night by heading out to Disneyland. I will bring you presents when I do the game thread tomorrow. So with that, I leave you in the very capable hands of Pluto Nico, who will take you the rest of the way.
LET'S GO OAK-LAND!!!
