Welcome to another beautiful, yet now somehow tainted, day of A's baseball as the A's finish up the series against the Twins, and complete the short homestand before they get on a plane in preparation for the Thurs/Fri/Sat series against one of their direct competitors in Tampa Bay. We WERE excited about tomorrow's game, until the news broke that Bartolo Colon has been suspended for steroids and Tyson Ross will be starting in his place. That's just super. Thanks a heap, Colon.
The A's newly retooled offense will face off against Liam Hendriks, who sounds like he would be more at home in an Abercrombie advertisement than a major league mound, but nevertheless, he is starting the game, replacing Nick Blackburn, who isn't starting due to sucking. Judging from the A's usual reactions to rookie pitchers, I think they'd rather see Blackburn. The A's will need to find a way to score some runs; they should probably keep pace with Tampa Bay before heading to Florida for a late-August showdown.
Starting for Oakland at home will be Tommy Milone, who has been fairly pedestrian in his last four starts; the only reason he isn't 0-4 (he's 0-3), is because the A's overcame a grand slam to win one of his games in the later innings. It's been suggested on AN that Milone is pitching better than his recent numbers would indicate, but with Strailey, Blackley, and Griffin all legitimate contenders for the rotation (and one of them will replace Colon), Milone would do well to turn in a quality start today. Plus we need it, because um...Tyson Ross?
Here are your lineups:
LET'S GO OAK-LAND!
