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Happy Saturday, and happy Turn Back the Clock Day. As a uniform geek, this is one of my favorite promotions of the year, and it doesn't hurt that the old KC Athletics uniforms were snazzy as hell. And really, what better way to enflame the weird rivalry that has developed between the A's and the Royals than to make them crosstown rivals for the day?
Today's pitching matchup is Scott Kazmir (4-4, 2.70) vs. Chris Young (6-3, 2.83). I'm really excited for this, because Chris Young is one of my favorite pitchers – primarily because his success makes literally zero sense. Everything I've ever learned about baseball tells me that his success is unsustainable – he gives up too many home runs, he walks too many people, he throws mid-80s FBs, he doesn't strikeout anyone. And he's still successful! The dude has completely broken broken FIP and sabremetrics in general, and I love him for that. There's no pitcher like him in the game.
Last time the A's faced Chris Young, he pitched six innings and allowed two solo home runs, which is basically what you expect out of him at this point. Of course, the time before that, he lasted two-thirds of an inning and allowed 5 earned runs. Unfortunately we can't rely on Adam Dunn this year, but hopefully we can approximate that.
Scott Kazmir is coming off a pretty excellent 7.1 inning start versus the Angels. His FIP is a little inflated at 3.53 and he's never really outperformed his FIP before, but I'll ignore that and say that he's having an incredible season. Woo, Kazmir. You don't make me uneasy at all. Woo.
Here are the lineups, featuring double catchers and no Billy Burns.
