Grrrrrrrrreat -- after last night's , the A's hitters (who broke out for one whole inning against Padilla) get to face ... a rookie left-hander whom none of the A's have seen before. A rookie left-hander who doesn't throw very hard and has a plus changeup. Grrrrrrrrreat. So if you hitters could go on ahead and come in on Saturday, that'd be grrrrrrrrreat. Mmmkay?

Interesting lineup Geren rolls out today vs. Matt Harrison: I don't disagree at all with sitting Cust ... or even with DH'ing Emil. Starting Gonzalez instead of Sweeney (or, rather, starting Rajai instead of letting both Sweeney and Gonzalez play) seems a mite odd, seeing as how well Sweeney has been swinging the bat overall, and how poor Gonzalez has looked against offspeed stuff from lefties, but ... whatev.

Fortunately, we've got Duke -- he of the 1.78 ERA and 0.89 WHIP -- starting. Expect the Rangers to be swinging, and swinging hard -- Duke, as we know, is always right around the plate, and basically does not walk any of the current Rangers hitters for his career. Watch out for Michael Young (who is a preposterous 10/19 off Duke lifetime, albeit mostly singles) and, of course, the "Risk Twins" (Bradley and Hamilton).

And, of course, since today's game starts at a normal time ... what would be more normal under the Selig Regime than for the game to not be televised? I'll reconstruct the events for the postgame recap from the teletype machine. FU, Bud.