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Due to Bartolo Colon's sudden and mysterious "um...groin injury, that's it!", Tommy Milone is back in the fold to make today's start against fellow LHP Scott Kazmir.
Milone says that in his 2 starts for Sacramento he worked on keeping the ball down, which is good because in his recent big league starts I was working on keeping my breakfast down. Milone's last start was a poorly timed suckfest against the Texas Rangers, in which he surrendered 6 ER on 9 hits, 2 of them HRs, in 3.2 IP. The crafty vampire enters today's game 9-9 with a 4.39 ERA.
As for Kazmir, he went from electric-but-erratic with Tampa Bay to downright awful with the Angels, and has resurfaced as a "feel good reclamation project" for the Indians. Kazmir is 7-5 with a 4.18 ERA and like Ubaldo Jimenez he has produced an unpredictable mix of subpar and brilliant starts. For example, in his last 5 starts Kazmir has allowed 0 ER in 3 of them, but in the other 2 he has been touched for 4 and 5 ER and been knocked out early.
It's the A's "vs. LHP lineup" featuring Nate "4 for 4" Freiman and Chris "An inch is really important (TWSS)" Young, with Josh Donaldson DHing. Jesse Chavez threw 34 pitches last night and Evan Scribner is back at AAA, so hopefully Milone can get deep into today's game and the "plus relievers" can do their thang.
