Let’s not talk about the Bay Bridge Series. Instead, let’s focus on the week ahead and a bunch of games against AL West division rivals.
We start with three games at home against the LA Angels, with Wednesday’s game being an early start and available out-of-market for free on MLB.com.
109 games into the regular season and the LA Angels, unfortunately for them, have gone all “Angelsy” again. They are 46-63, so just five games better off than us despite spending $140m more on their payroll (which would be even funnier were it not for the obvious joy John Fisher will take from this fact). After the A’s went a scarcely believable 5-21 in June, the Angels cratered almost as badly in July by going 6-18.
All of which is to say that this is probably not a series that will be grabbing the attention of any neutrals, although I guess a Shohei Ohtani start (scheduled to pitch on Tuesday) is always an event of some kind. The probable starting pitching match-ups are as follows:
- Gm1. Cole Irvin – José Suarez
- Gm2. James Kaprielian – Shohei Ohtani
- Gm3. Paul Blackburn – Patrick Sandoval.
After that, it’s off to Texas for games against the Astros and then the Rangers.
Somehow we have managed to split the 12 games we’ve played so far against the Astros, so you know they will be desperate to put that right; however the A’s have had their number of late and maybe we can keep that run going a little bit longer.
Probable pitchers are as follows:
- Gm1. Adam Oller – Lance McCullers Jr.
- Gm2. Adrián Martínez – Luis Garcia
- Gm3. Cole Irvin – Cristian Javier
