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Too bad that there was no game yesterday. Really sad. Man, what a shame. Nothing of note happened, just a typical day off. No need to look it up, I swear.
Okay, fine, the A’s got brutalized. Destroyed. Ruined forever. Still only counts as one game, so that’s the good news. Also Ike Davis pitched, and therefore everything was worth it.
Sonny Gray, the A’s erstwhile ace, is coming off his worst start of the year so far. In reality, it was actually pretty decent as far as these things go. 6 innings, 4 runs doesn’t look good, but he was hitting all of his spots and his stuff looked great. He totaled his highest strikeout total of the year (5), too. The problem was that the Royals are annoying, and absolutely singled him to death. Gray wanted the Royals to hit groundballs and they hit groundballs. Unfortunately, they hit groundballs through the infield. Anytime you see a bad start with a 6.00 ERA and a 1.91 FIP, there’s no reason to worry about anything.
Gray will be opposed by Jered Weaver. Weaver’s not having a good season by any measure: 6.61 ERA, 5.89 FIP, 4.80 xFIP, 2.20 HR/9, 4.96 K/9. A big reason for this is that it appears his fastball velocity has maybe finally become untenable.
Jered Weaver’s top fastball this year: 87.68 mph Ike Davis’ top fastball velo (tonight): 88
— Beyond the Box Score (@BtBScore) April 22, 2015
It’s really not pretty at all. But Jered Weaver has traditionally decimated the A’s, so I’m not especially optimistic.
In other news, R.J. Alvarez got sent down and Arnold Leon got called up to serve as long relief, strengthening the really weak bullpen. Ike Davis is also unavailable out of the pen, because he is batting 5th. Zobrist continues to be out, but things might be looking up for our (probably) best player.
Ben Zobrist just walked by me with a bat, said cheerfully, "Going to swing!" So that seems like a positive
— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) April 22, 2015
Here are the lineups.
