After a day off yesterday the A’s are back at it tonight, welcoming the Colorado Rockies to Las Vegas Ballpark for a three-game weekend series against the worst team in the National League. The Rockies sit at 26-43 and are already gauging the upcoming trade market to see what they can offload on contenders. A big weekend in a minor league, hitter-friendly ballpark could help boost some of their trade chips’ values but the A’s will be hoping for a dominant weekend against a lesser opponent.
Tonight’s
starting pitcher for the Athletics will be rookie Gage Jump. The left-hander is set to make his fourth career start and first of many in Las Vegas. So far in the early going he’s been as advertised, especially in his last two contests. After having some debut jitters he’s fired off seven innings of one-run ball against the Chicago Cubs before pitching 6 1/3 shutout baseball against the Houston Astros. He’ll be tasked with keeping that going against a Rockies lineup that is short on big bats.
The starting lineup for tonight’s series opener looks like this:
The team welcomes shortstop Jacob Wilson back to the starting lineup for the first time in a month after he was activated off the IL earlier in the day. The team did lose usual DH Brent Rooker to the IL in exchange for Wilson though. Backup catcher Jonah Heim draws the first start without Rook and he could get plenty of at bats while the regular DH is down. The rest of the lineup looks about as you’d expect versus an opposing lefty. Colby Thomas over Lawrence Butlsr in right, and Zack Gelof over Jeff McNeil at the keystone. The only lefties in the starting lineup are Nick Kurtz and Tyler Soderstrom (though Heim is a switch-hitter).
That lineup will be facing Colorado rookie Sean Sullivan, who will be making his big league debut this evening. It’s a rough assignment for your first big league start as he’ll be pitching in a minor league ballpark where the ball absolutely flies. Add in he’s facing a hot A’s lineup and the expectations can’t be too high for the young left-hander, a former second-round pick and considered a top-10 prospect in a weak Rockies farm system. In 11 starts in Triple-A this year Sullivan has a 5.60 ERA in the hitter-friendly PCL.
And here’s how the Rockies will line up tonight against Gage Jump:
The Rockies don’t have much in the way of big bats. Catcher Hunter Goodman has 18 long balls and rookie first baseman TJ Rumfield is hitting well in his first big league action while outfielder Troy Johnson is holding his own, but they also come into this series down one of their better hitters in Mickey Monika. Jump can handle these guys but we’ll see how Las Vegas Ballpark plays tonight.
We gotta take all three of these games this weekend. Let’s go A’s!
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