Hello, and welcome to the very first FRIDAY NIGHT GAME THREAD of the season! I am your host, baseballgirl, but sadly for you and awesomely for me, I will be at the actual game, so I will only be hosting the intro and the recap. On the bright side, I will have a live view of the game, so I'll be sure to report how the team looked. My colleague, Nico, will take you the rest of the way, so instead of wine like last week, tonight's theme will be chocolate martinis.
Congratulations, Gio Gonzalez, on winning the fifth starting job for the 2010 Oakland rotation! Your first test will be today; I hope you have it all worked out! The first-place A's and Gio Gonzalez will take on Matt Palmer and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Palmer started 13 games last year and became a reliever in the second half of the season. He was 7-1 overall as starter and had his ERA under 4 as a reliever.
Gonzalez is coming off a fairly good start; his main trouble is still that one big inning, usually due to his walks (something he needs to cut down on) where it seems like everything that goes wrong just starts to multiply. If he can start to avoid the big innings, he can be a real threat on this staff.
Be sure to thank Nico for me!
I'll return and report after the game.
LET'S GO OAK-LAND!
