A's Open Homestand With Three Game Series Against Kansas City Royals

The Oakland A's open up a six-game homestand with three games against the Kansas City Royals. The A's have fairly generally well against sub-.500 teams and will be looking to gain some momentum heading into their weekend series with the first-place Texas Rangers. After gaining a mere half game on the Rangers in the month of July, the A's will need to step up their game if they want to have any shot at winning the AL West. Of course, given the team's success against bad teams and struggles against good teams, it's entirely possible we know exactly what the A's bring to the table: a team that likely won't finish much higher than .500. Hopefully I'm wrong.

The series opens with Trevor Cahill going for win #11 against Brian Bannister. Cahill lowered his era to sub-3 with his strong performance against the Rangers down in Texas last week. The A's will be looking for more of the same against a continually struggling Royals squad. The A's will hope to continue the battering that Brian Bannister has taken this season. After a solid April, Bannister has had an ERA over six the last three months and hasn't put up a quality start since June.

The A's send out Vin Mazzaro tomorrow night to face Kyle Davies. After six excellent starts over June and July, Mazzaro was smacked around in Texas last week to the tune of 7 runs in 5.1 innings. That was his first truly awful start since his early struggles after being called up in May. He'll face Kyle Davies, who has been rather inconsistent this season. He's coming off a decent July in which he put up a 3.98 era in 5 starts.

The series wraps up Wednesday with Root Bear Float Day at the Coliseum in a game pitting Brett Anderson against Sean O'Sullivan. Anderson will be making his second start since returning from the DL, and will be looking to improve on his first start, in which he gave up 5 runs on 10 hits in a loss at Chicago. He faces O'Sullivan, who was recently acquired from the Angels as part of the deal sending Alberto Callaspo to Anaheim. O'Sullivan has made seven appearances, three of them starts, this season.