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Welcome to A's baseball, where everything is misery and joy turns to ash in your mouth. We're all going to die eventually, and life is only endless struggle.
It's not really as bad as all that yet. But if we get swept by the Yankees at home, I reserve the right to go full nihilist after the game. There's only one man who can defend against a ponderous and miserable recap: Jesse Hahn (1-1, 3.38).
After coming back to the MLB, Hahn's been mostly solid. Don't look at the advanced numbers, he's been great. Sure, he has a 2.89 K/9 (I've actually never seen it that low), and a 5.64 FIP, but whatever you do, don't look at that. He's gained 2.5 MPH on his fastball since this time last year, so the insane lack of strikeouts is pretty inexplicable. I can't imagine it continuing, to be honest.
Michael Pineda (1-5, 6.60) is having the exact opposite problem – he's striking out everybody (10.31 K/9), but he's been terrible in terms of run prevention. This is mostly due to the fact that he's giving up over 2 HRs per nine innings. That's a lot. It seems like the A's can only really win games when someone hits three homers, so, hey, favorable pitching matchup.
Here's the lineup. It's pretty bleak. Max Muncy will hit three dingers, though. Trust me on this. It'll be crazy. Place your bets now.
