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Get out those brooms, Athletics Nation, because It's time for some daytime baseball! Oakland goes for their 2nd consecutive sweep of the Houston Astros today, and you'll have to take my word for it because the game isn't televised.
Today's game features a re-match of starting pitchers Bartolo Colon and Bud Norris. Colon is a walking fat joke who is also a pretty good pitcher. Norris is slightly less of a fat joke, but is also slightly less good of a pitcher. In their previous match-up, Colon was strong and steady (83 pitches in 6 innings), while Norris struggled to find the plate (122 pitches through 5.2 innings, allowing 2 homers). It should be noted that Norris came back after that start and dominated the Angels for 7 shutout innings, which is kind of like dominating the Astros for 7 shutout innings these days.
| Astros (B. Norris - R) @ Athletics (B. Colon - R) | |||
John Jaso leads off again in the DH spot, with Coco getting this game off ahead of tomorrow's off-day. Having depth allows you to do things like that (that is, rest your injury-prone starter and still have a really good hitter to start in his place). I'm glad to see Melvin getting Jaso's bat into the lineup as much as possible.
We get another Norris/Norris match-up today, with Derek starting behind the plate against Bud. Keebs will try to build on last night's 3-for-3 performance, and if he gets a hit or two then he could raise his batting average above .300. Shane Peterson gets his second straight start, and will look for his first MLB hit.
Let's Go Oakland!
