Game Thread #121: A's at Rangers

Let's try and forget about last night and look towards the future. Middle infielder Chad Pinder has been called up from AAA Nashville and, while he's not in the lineup today, we'll hopefully be seeing a lot of him soon. One of our top prospects, Matt Chapman, has been called up from AA Midland to AAA Nashville., Hopefully Pinder will be a mainstay in the major league lineup for a long time to come and Chapman will be here when he's ready.

Sean Manaea is pitching for the A's today. After a rocky start to the season (due in large part to being rushed up because of the A's' incredible streak of pitcher injuries), Manaea has started to settle in well at the major league level. He's lasted 6 innings or more in most of his recent outings and has shown better command of his offspeed pitches. While his July streak of not walking batters has been broken in his last couple of appearances, he has still been looking strong and can hopefully keep the A's in the game against Yu Darvish. Darvish has struggled against Oakland for his entire career despite being an overall excellent pitcher, so maybe the A's can cheese their way to a win against Darvish in the same way that Adrian Beltre always seems to find a way against us.

The season is lost, the series is lost, and with the addition of Tyler Ladendorf to the DL, the A's have set a team record for injuries in a season. But let's try and look past all that and think about the future: a future with Sean Manaea as our #2 pitcher, Chad Pinder as our starting second baseman, and Matt Chapman locking things down with tremendous defense at third base. Out of the ashes of this season, hopefully, rises the next great A's team. Maybe we'll see some of that tonight.

Game time is 5:05 PT. Go A's!