The A's look to salvage at least one win from the Indians in this series and throw Tyson Ross onto the mound on his birthday to do it. The Indians counter with sinkerballer Justin Masterson in a matchup of ugly mechanics. The A's lineup isn't anything out of the ordinary though it looks like the Indians are throwing a B-Squad out there with Jose Lopez at first, Aaron Cunningham in left and Lou Marson behind the plate. Ka'aihue DH's for Oakland and Coco Crisp remains out with flu-like symptoms, which if despite the lack of results to me presently represents addition by subtraction with how he has been weakly popping out so often.
The A's made a roster move today claiming now-former Minnesota Twins infielder off waivers as they continue the Australianization of the club through the waiver wire. He has only 11 plate appearances with the Twinkies to his name this year going .200/.182/.200 but in his 335 plate appearance career has wowed with a .224/.285/.342 slash line and 0.6 WAR across 102 games.
Hughes clearly has been signed as a third base solution and I anticipate the demotion of Josh Donaldson once he arrives in California. While he only has 121 MLB innings at third base, the pluarity of his 593 MiLB games have come at the home corner (278 of them to be exact). The move to get him onto the 40-man roster involved moving Dallas Braden to the 60-day disabled list meaning his setback was a clearly a significant one.
Lineups for today are from Baseball Press:
Enjoy the game! Time to brush up on your Australian baseball slang. I expect to see all of these used in the comments during the game (c/o Modern Era Baseball):
"Down His Throat" is a long, lazy fly ball to an outfielder who easily makes the catch.
"Wooshta" is lingo for a player who strikes out swinging.
"Peg" is a throw.
"Blocker" is sometimes referred to as the "catcha" (catcher).
"Dig" is an inning.
"Hard on you!" refers to a close ball or strike call from the umpire that players or managers take exception to.
"Hookie" is a left-handed batter, pronounced by swallowing the first consonant, " 'ookeeeee!"
"How many are we?" means "What is the score?"
"Inshoot" refers to a curve ball that's coming inside on a batter.
"Leave the rubbish" is used to remind a teammate not to swing at bad pitches.
"Sledging" is a term referred to as trash talking in Australia; also known as "stiff banter."
"Stink" refers to teams who won't shake hands with each other after the game because there's been "some stink" during the game.
"A Match" is sometimes referred to as a "A Game."
"Spanking" refers to a competitive game or tournament, as in "we're going to have a spanking competition."
"Final Series" is sometimes referred to as Major League Baseball's World Series.
Hopefully Travis Hafner can be a wooshta, Cespedes can leave the rubbish and we can get some swinging inshoots from the bullpen in the late digs.
