The Tampa Bay Rays are hoping to wrest a three-game series from the Oakland Athletics today after dropping a close one on Friday night 5-4. The two teams are closing out the series on a Saturday afternoon - a pretty rare occurrence in MLB scheduling.
Tampa Bay Rays lineup:
01. Desmond Jennings, LF
02. Sam Fuld, CF
03. Matt Joyce, RF
04. Evan Longoria, 3B
05. Ben Zobrist, SS
06. Luke Scott, DH
07. Carlos Pena, 1B
08. Ryan Roberts, 2B
09. Jose Lobaton, C
The Rays are sending out Jeremy Hellickson (8-8, 3.28 ERA) who is looking to continue off of two strong starts. In his past two starts, Hellickson is 1-1 with 14 IP, two earned runs and seven strikeouts. The hard luck loss came against the Mariners in which he went seven innings and gave up one run.
Oakland Athletics lineup:
01. Coco Crisp, CF
02. Stephen Drew, SS
03. Yoenis Cespedes, LF
04. Seth Smith, DH
05. Chris Carter, 1B
06. Josh Reddick, RF
07. Josh Donaldson, 3B
08. George Kottaras, C
09. Cliff Pennington, 2B
The A's are sending out Brandon McCarthy (6-5, 3.16 ERA) who got battered around by the Minnesota Twins in his last start. He hopes to rebound from a poor effort in which McCarthy only lasted 3.1 IP while giving up 10 hits and six runs in the process.
For more on the Rays go visit DRaysBay as well as SB Nation Tampa Bay, and go check out Athletics Nation and SB Nation Bay Area for everything on the A's. Also check out Baseball Nation for even more news and notes from around the Majors.