Welcome to Thursday A\u2019s fans!<\/p>\n
We got a brand new series on tap as the A\u2019s welcome division rival Seattle Mariners to town for three games. Seattle is falling in the standings fast and has to be in panic and desperation mode right now. They can\u2019t afford to drop a single game to the Athletics this weekend. That means they\u2019ll be all tense and tight with the pressure of the playoffs bearing on them. The A\u2019s meanwhile don\u2019t have that expectation of a much-needed win. We can play care free and mess with the Mariners all we want. We\u2019re playing with house money and any wins are gravy, especially against a division foe.<\/p>\n
The pitching matchups this weekend are set beginning with tonight\u2019s rematch between lefty Jeffrey Springs and righty George Kirby. Springs is in the final stretch of his A\u2019s tenure as the flyball pitcher has made it known he doesn\u2019t think his style of play is conducive to the Athletics\u2019 current home ballpark. He\u2019s not wrong as his ERA on the road is 4.76 compared to the 7.18 mark at Sutter Health. The 33-year-old just saw these guys last time out, firing seven shutout innings with just a pair of hits and walks allowed. That was in Seattle however and this\u2019ll be in his home ballpark. Which Springs will show up tonight? If his season is any indication the A\u2019s bats will have to show up tonight.<\/p>\n
Kirby is going to be a tough task for them. The right-hander is in the midst of a solid if unspectacular campaign, sporting a 4.18 ERA through 27 starts. He hasn\u2019t reached the peaks that the M\u2019s envisioned for him when they made him a first round pick seven years ago but he\u2019s settled into a reliable arm for them nonetheless. His most recent start, against our A\u2019s, was the epitome of Kirby as he provided Seattle with nearly seven full frames and three earned runs allowed in a loss. It\u2019s the reverse for Kirby compared to Springs: he\u2019s pitched very well at home but struggles a bit on the road. Oh yea, expect a high scoring game tonight.<\/p>\n
Saturday will be another righty-versus-lefty matchup as the Athletics have young southpaw Gage Jump getting the ball for the 20th time this year. The rookie has seen the highs and lows that come with pitching at the big league level and he\u2019s being given runway to work through those issues, which he\u2019s having plenty of recently. The experience he\u2019s getting right now, in these exact type of games, is going to be the building blocks of the future success he\u2019s going to have helping get this squad back to October baseball.<\/p>\n
Jump will be opposed by right-hander Bryan Woo. Now wrapping up his fourth season, Woo has been a lot like Kirby in that he\u2019s been reliable to pitch every five days. But like Kirby he\u2019s been more of a mid to backend type of pitcher this season. The 26-year-old has a solid 4.03 ERA but again, those home\/road splits are crazy to look at. When pitching in Seattle he\u2019s almost an ace with a 2.36 ERA, but on the road his 5.63 ERA makes him look more like a quadruple-A pitcher. He\u2019s probably not looking forward to pitching in Sacramento.<\/p>\n
Then we wrap the series and homestand on Sunday with a Jacob Lopez versus Bryce Miller matchup. Lopez has come all the way back from the lows he experience this summer to be one of the best pitchers over the past couple of months. The lefty has pitched himself back into the A\u2019s plans for the offseason. Whether it\u2019s been enough to guarantee him a rotation job or be more of a depth piece is something the front office will have to decide but for now he\u2019s doing all he can to be a rotation front-runner next spring. He had his first hiccup since rejoining the rotation in his last start where he allowed four runs to the Blue Jays. Hopefully teams aren\u2019t beginning to figure him out with winter around the corner.<\/p>\n
Miller meanwhile missed the first month of the year due to injury and that might have thrown him off all year. He started strong enough but has faded back here down the stretch, part of why Seattle has too. He\u2019s 0-4 over his past seven starts with a sky-high 7.22 ERA during that span. It\u2019s going to be a long day at the ballpark all weekend and don\u2019t expect that to change for Miller on Sunday.<\/p>\n
And while most of the focus on tonight will be on the A\u2019s versus Mariners, today also marks the 25th anniversary of the 2001 attacks in New York. While the people that perpetrated that disaster sought to tear us apart baseball was one of the things that helped Americans come together during a difficult time. Today we should all remember those feelings of unity to remember those lost on that day.<\/p>\n
First pitch is at 6:40. Who\u2019s ready for a win to start our weekend?<\/p>\n
Another pitching prospect that could make it to the big leagues next year:<\/p>\n
Not shocking with LV around the corner:<\/p>\n
Former 8th rounder promoted to Las Vegas:<\/p>\n
Playing spoiler is fun too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to Thursday A\u2019s fans! We got a brand new series on tap as the A\u2019s welcome division…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[116118,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-460629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-athletics-news","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}