A’s vs. Guardians game thread

The Oakland A’s finally lost a series. After handling a triplet of teams that included the reigning champion Texas Rangers, the A’s let the St. Louis Cardinals take 2 out of 3 earlier this week. They’ll hope to regain some of their unlikely momentum by getting some revenge on Steven Vogt’s Cleveland Guardians, who squashed the A’s for the first 3 games of the season.

Guiding the A’s from the mound will be rookie Joe Boyle, who has a 5.68 ERA but has been wildly effective his last two times out. FIP also has him at nearly half that number at 2.96 (thank you, Sam Moll!) There’s definitely still work to be done to get a level of consistency needed to sustain a long-term starting career but his stuff is so good that his command issues haven’t caught up to him yet.

Matching up with him will be another highly talented youngster in Triston McKenzie. His command, however, looks even worse than Boyle’s this year. In 13 innings so far, he’s walked 12 batters and somehow only struck out 5, despite typically over a batter per inning. The A’s Ruiz-less lineup (*eye roll*) will look to be patient, work the 26-year-old’s pitch count up early, and make him beat himself.

And here’s Cleveland’s lineup with a headache-inducing caption.