Today’s lineup is going to play with your head a little bit – if you can pull yourself away from the Vikings game anyway. Apparently Gardy is in a juggling mood. I get this mental image of him with with a big erasor and his pencil redoing a whole big roster list – mostly because he just doesn’t seem like the whiteboard type to me.
According to LaVelle, they are also swapping spots in the pitching rotation. It’s been rumored for a couple days that now that Baker is feeling better, they were going to give him a start – that will happen on Tuesday. After that, the rotation will look like this: Francisco Liriano, Carl Pavano, Brian Duensing, Nick Blackburn, Kevin Slowey. From here out, it appears we have six starters and until someone has another issue, I’m totally ok with that. Liriano apparently didn’t get a lot of sleep last night because he has some sort of rash but he’s still going out there. Good man.
Other items of note: Punto is BACK! I know some don’t care but I’m happy to see him – Valencia’s bat has not made me decide that I don’t like Nicky anymore. And keep an eye on the dugout because apparently Lexi has died his hair – preparing I guess for an off-season move to blond. Boy do I hope he has to wait a LONG time for that.
And still Cuddyer is out there… really, someone has to get some innings at 1B besides him.. right? someday??
| Oakland | @ | Minnesota |
| Davis, R, CF | Revere, CF | |
| Barton, D, 1B | Hardy, SS | |
| Ellis, M, 2B | Mauer, C | |
| Suzuki, K, C | Cuddyer, 1B | |
| Carson, RF | Young, D, LF | |
| Donaldson, DH | Thome, DH | |
| Iwamura, 3B | Valencia, 3B | |
| Carter, LF | Repko, RF | |
| Tolleson, SS | Punto, 2B | |
| Cramer, P | Liriano, P |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
| Oakland | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 9 | 0 |
| Minnesota | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 2 |
Ok, so I only got a couple innings of actual watching so I’m not really going to be much help with this postgame wrap up. So I’m going to rely on the MLB Play by Play to give you the game info. Click that link and it will give an inning by inning account of the game. As far as highlights, the only thing that really makes me nervous is Mauer leaving the game. The report isn’t TOO serious – a jammed knee that leaves him day-to-day. But the way I see it is we’re ALL day-to-day. I just don’t know how we lose yet another productive bat out of our lineup and succeed with more long-term seasonal goals.
I kind of wish tomorrow was an off-day but I’m sure the boys will just keep plugging.