The Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics are playing live on the MLB schedule on Wednesday afternoon and the game is from O.co Coliseum and has the two AL teams looking to get a win and the pitching matchup has Jeremy Hellickson against Sonny Gray and that is a great matchup and comes after David Price was traded by TB and the A's acquired Jon Lester from the Red Sox and it starts up at 3:35 pm ET.
Gray has been one of the best young pitchers in baseball and he now is the young man on the staff with Lester coming in and this gives the A's a chance to push the Angels back in the standings. The A's feel the Angels and that is why they went after Jon Lester, as they know the division is no guarantee and while they are right there in the lead and have been there all season, the team knows the wild card game is a possibility.
Gray has pitched against the Rays before and in his last two starts he is 0-1 but has just a .61 ERA against the team in those starts and he has good matchups with Evan Longoria and Desmond Jennings and now he will face the team again. The Rays traded away David Price and are now fading from the wild card race and have lost five of six games and while they won't say they are done, they are basically done and have not been scoring much over the past week.
Gray has a great record at 12-4 and he has a 2.59 ERA and Oakland is looking for him to be the future ace of the staff and he looks like he will be. The Athletics have made some big moves this season and now they are looking to win the World Series and after this matchup, the team has Lester starting against the Minnesota Twins to open that series at home.
The Athletics are ranked first in the league in runs and 15th in batting average and they are in the top 10 in on base percentage and slugging percentage and they have been raking as of late. The team got a win from Jason Hammel in the last game and they beat Drew Smyly, who was traded for Price in the deal. The A's are ranked in the top 10 in all pitching categories and they are third in ERA, sixth in quality starts and second in both WHIP and BAA. The Rays have been struggling and they need a win here to turn things around and they play against the Cubs after this series ends.
Check here for the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics live coverage.
