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Welcome to A's baseball, where everything is made up and the wins don't matter. Today's matchup is Cody Anderson vs. Aaron Brooks, truly a #AceOff.
Cody Anderson (2-2, 3.26) is a 24 year old rookie with exactly 6 MLB starts under his belt. He really wasn't on the radar until this year, putting up 1.73 ERA in AA and a 2.33 ERA in AAA, both with outstanding peripherals. His claim to fame was his first four starts earlier this month, in which he allowed a cumulative total of 3 earned runs while averaging 7.2 innings per start. He's recently fallen on hard times though – he's allowed a total of 11 runs over his last two starts, totalling 8.1 innings
Aaron Brooks (0-0, 6.23) will be making his A's debut and the second start of his MLB career. What should you expect? Well, not much. He's significantly better than the 20.57 career ERA he has in the MLB (woof), but he's more of a "good depth piece" than anything else. He relies on a 90-92 MPH sinker and an average-to-above-average changeup, coupled with a hard slurvey breaking ball that's below-average. He won't walk many, but the 25-year-old RHP will probably never crack a good MLB rotation.
Meanwhile, the A's offense has some serious demons to excise. The past two games have been awful with the A's getting a total of three hits. July in general has not been kind.
#Athletics in July: 43 walks, 2nd fewest in July since 1914 (Montreal , 42, 1999); and 76 runs and 15 HRs = Oakland’s fewest ever in July.
— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) August 1, 2015
Alas, this might not be the lineup to break out of it.
Baseball, woo?
