The Oakland Athletics and Texas Rangers have released their lineups for the first of their four game series and the A’s find themselves without Coco Crisp once again. He tweaked a quad muscle against the Angels on Tuesday and has been out since, listed as day-to-day. Oakland has moved David DeJesus to center and Conor Jackson moves over to right field in the meantime.
Jackson has split his time between left field, right field, and first base this season. While he isn’t putting up huge offensive numbers, he’s had some big hits thus far. I wasn’t sure about including him on the 25-man roster coming out of spring training, but he has quickly turned into an important utility outfielder/first baseman for the A’s.
Tonight’s matchup features a battle of aces as Trevor Cahill and C.J. Wilson will be looking to throw up some goose eggs on the scoreboard. It is a long four game series, but a win and solid offensive performance on the first night could provide the A’s with some much needed momentum in this big series.
Oakland Athletics
1. Mark Ellis® 2B
2. Daric Barton (L) 1B
3. Conor Jackson® RF
4. Josh Willingham® LF
5. Kurt Suzuki® DH
6. David DeJesus (L) CF
7. Kevin Kouzmanoff® 3B
8. Landon Powell (S) C
9. Cliff Pennington (S) SS
Texas Rangers
1. Ian Kinsler® 2B
2. Elvis Andrus® SS
3. Michael Young® DH
4. Adrian Beltre® 3B
5. Nelson Cruz® RF
6. David Murphy (L) LF
7. Yorvit Torrealba® C
8. Mitch Moreland (L) 1B
9. Julio Borbon (L) CF