The Oakland Athletics send out Guillermo Moscoso to face Zach Britton and the Baltimore Orioles Sunday afternoon at 1:05pm pacific. The A’s will be looking to secure their first series sweep of the season and climb back to the .500 mark for the first time since May 19. The A’s have won four of their last five games and the AL West is bunching up fairly tightly. Oakland remains in last place but is only 1 1/2 games out of first.
The A’s continue their pattern of sitting Hideki Matsui and Ryan Sweeney against left-handed pitchers. I had raised a question about playing Sweeney more often and somebody at Athletics Nation followed up with a similar question. However, as the comments show in the AN FanPost, Sweeney has found the most success against right-handed pitchers. If that’s what it takes to keep Sweeney in the lineup, so be it.
Oakland Athletics
1. Coco Crisp CF
2. Daric Barton 1B
3. Conor Jackson LF
4. Josh Willingham DH
5. Kurt Suzuki C
6. David DeJesus RF
7. Mark Ellis 2B
8. Kevin Kouzmanoff 3B
9. Cliff Pennington SS