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Game Thread #153: Angels at A’s

A’s look to take the series (that should have been a sweep!) from the Angels and gain a half game on the Astros

By Baseball_Jen
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim v Oakland Athletics
Stephen Piscotty drove in half of the A’s 10 runs against the Angels Wednesday night.
Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Wednesday night the A’s offense — or I should emphasize Stephen Piscotty’s offense especially, given he drove in half of the A’s runs — exploded last night to defeat the Angels 10-0. Hopefully they didn’t use up all their runs last night, but with this lineup that is not usually the case. Brett Anderson pitched a great game, getting ground out after ground out and pitching into the seventh, giving the A’s fatigued bullpen some much needed rest. With such a huge lead BoMel was able to use Ryan Dull, Frankie Montas and Aaron Brooks to finish out the game.

With the Rays streaking and now being just five and a half games behind the A’s in the Wild Card race, the Astros having an off day and the A’s stacked bullpen desperately needing more rest before (hopefully) having to pitch on October 3rd in the Bronx, a game like Wednesday’s is the kind of game the team needs to see today. An Anderson-like outing is the kind of outing the A’s are going to need from starter Edwin Jackson. Thankfully, Jackson has been stellar since joining the A’s in late June. He’s 5-3 with a 3.17 ERA in 82.1 innings. The A’s are 12-3 when he has started the game, so the outlook is good so far. Still, he’ll need to pitch as deep into the game as possible to save the bullpen, and the A’s offense will need to beat up on Angels starter Matt Shoemaker. Shoemaker is making just his fifth start for the Angels this season, having been sidelined since April with a forearm injury. He’s 2-1 with a 3.98 ERA in 20.1 innings. The ball should fly this sunny afternoon at the Coliseum, so we have to just hope that it’s off the bats of Khris Davis, Piscotty, Jed Lowrie, etc. and not off the bat of the likes of Mike Trout! Well, without further ado ...

Here are today’s starting lineups:

Oakland Athletics:

  1. N Martini (L) LF
  2. M Chapman (R) 3B
  3. J Lowrie (S) 2B
  4. K Davis (R) DH
  5. M Olson (L) 1B
  6. S Piscotty (R) RF
  7. R Laureano (R) CF
  8. M Semien (R) SS
  9. J Phegley (R) C

Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim):

  1. K Calhoun (L) RF
  2. J Fernández (L) 1B
  3. M Trout (R) CF
  4. S Ohtani (L) DH
  5. J Upton (R) LF
  6. A Simmons (R) SS
  7. F Arcia (L) C
  8. K Cowart (S) 2B
  9. T Ward (R) 3B

The A’s need this win today. With the Astros idle they stand to gain a half game in the AL West. Winning the division is still within reach. Of course that means the Astros will have to keep losing (like they did yesterday), which is hard to imagine at this point. The A’s were able to pull off a similar feat in 2012, being five games out with nine left to play, proving that nothing is impossible — especially when it comes to the Athletics!

So here we go ..... Let’s Go Oakland!!!

*IMPORTANT REMINDER: Today’s game is being shown ONLY on Facebook!

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