After an ugly series against the Tigers and a split against the Rangers, a series against the A's is texactly what we need right now. Going from facing lineups with Miguel Cabreras and Josh Hamiltons to a lineup whose greatest threat is Josh Willingham is kind of a nice change of pace.

Luckily for A's fans, we're going to try to counteract that lineup by bringing out Nick Blackburn tonight. Blackie's been in second-half form lately, carrying a 6.94 ERA over his last seven starts (and that's after a couple of very nice starts in the middle of this month). We've got the resistible force meeting the movable object - which will suck less? Only time will tell.

The Twins get to face Guillermo Moscoso. Guillermo's trad stats look okay (3-5, 3.47 ERA), but he's carrying some ugly peripherals. He's not striking people out (4.5 K/9), he's walking more than a pitcher like him should (3.5 BB/9), and he's giving up lots of homers (1.4 HR/9, which seems high, until you consider he's got a ground ball rate of just over 25%). Combine that with a BABIP of .219, and you would think that this is exactly the type of pitcher the Twins would tee off on (no ground balls, no strikeouts). So, let's see some of that, then.

I expect a high scoring game. However, since I'm expecting that, I'm sure the game will go scoreless until the 17th inning, when Butera will bunt home a run, making Cuddyer the winning pitcher (Jose Mijares won't be used, because no loving manager would put his team's fans through two straight nights of Mijares pitching).