A's @ Rays Tuesday 4/27 and Wednesday 4/28

[Providence A's]

The first place A's (12 - 8) travel to take on the first place Rays (14 - 5) for a two-game series.

Ben Sheets (1 - 1, 2.74) vs. Wade Davis (1 - 1, 2.65) on Tuesday
Dallas Braden (3 - 0, 2.77) vs. James Shields (2 - 0, 3.96) on Wednesday

Hopefully, the A's can take at least one game here before traveling to Toronto for a four-game series.

[DirtyKash]

That's odd. They're making the A's travel cross-country from Oakland to Tampa for just a two-game series? Who makes these schedules? At least play three! Also, I hate four-game series. This should be three and three.

[Providence A's]

There are two more two-game series this year:

May 17th/18th: vs. SEA
May 19th/20th: vs. DET

[hot_corner_gurl]

This two game series will also be our only trip to St. Petersburg. Eh, enjoy the Florida weather while you can, boys!


I don't think that getting a split in this series will be all that difficult. Kooz and Suzuki should (hopefully?) be back in the lineup tomorrow (although Barton's another story...), and with Chavez's reemergence from the point of no return, I think we have a good deal of momemtum on our side.

[Kingdom]

Could we call this series the rAy's?

Maybe not. Anyone betting Ben Zobrist steps on the mound when Braden pitches?

[Providence A's]

A's lost 8 - 6 with Sheets getting lit up. He gave up all 8 runs and 2 homers. Barton was in the lineup. Pennington was 4 for 5 with 2 doubles, a homer, and 4 RBIs.

[hot_corner_gurl]

Yikes. So far, not so good for Sheets. Hopefully Braden can right the ship tomorrow and we can salvage the final game before heading off to Canada.

[DirtyKash]

Dallas Braden got hammered tonight. Maybe he's still worked up from the mound incident that he couldn't totally focus.

[Providence A's]

Well, we all knew the A's would fall back to Earth and TB is playing extremely well. Barton homered...but made 2 more errors and has 6 already. I expect that to even out as his ratings (all those newer fielding metrics) have had him as above average. Oh well, on to Toronto.

[DirtyKash]

12 strikeouts for Shields. Yeesh.

[Tobywan]

I think every team has one of these WTF kind of series through the season where the scheduling makes no sense, but at least they usually make it difficult on every team at least once in the season.

Both pitchers were sketchy on Tues. and could it could have gone either way. I didn’t get to watch the entire game last night as I was working, but it looks like Shields was really dominant, we need that from him. The only problem with starting out like gangbusters is worrying when it will come crashing down. I know it was a 2 mid-week games but with the Rays winning the last 13 out of 15 games you would think people would show up. Kind of pathetic.