Offtopic » Locked in a battle with Houston

for the AL West crown and in the middle of one of the most challenging stretches of the schedule this season http://www.oriolesfanproshop.com/authentic-caleb-joseph-jersey , Oakland A’s manager Bob Melvin plans to be creative with his starting rotation for the time being.That will start Sunday when Chris Bassitt is recalled from Triple-A Nashville to start against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field.That will allow Melvin to give all his starters an extra day before their next turn.Article continues below ...“What the schedule allows you to do this year is give some guys some extra rest,” Melvin said Saturday. “We have been leaning on them a little more here recently. So, we want to make sure these guys are fresh down the stretch. ‘Bass’ is pitching pretty well down there at this point, so he’ll get the start tomorrow. We won’t go with a six-man rotation.”Bassitt has a 4.25 ERA in 17 appearances for Nashville this season and 2-3 with a 3.39 ERA and 25 strikeouts in six starts for the A’s. His last big league appearance came on July 11 when he allowed three runs over five innings in the A’s 3-2 victory over the Astros.Melvin also has the luxury of a deep and relatively rested bullpen at his disposal to spell his starters or cover innings in the event of a short start.He’ll also try and get some of his position players a break, too, during this run of 20 games in 20 days. Matt Olson was held out of the starting lineup Saturday after playing in all 129 of Oakland’s games to that point.“We’ll see where it goes,” Melvin said. “He doesn’t want anything to do with it, but talking to the training staff Roberto Alomar Jersey , there are a few guys that we will look to maybe try to do this with. (Saturday) was his day.”Sunday will mark the first time that Minnesota right-hander Jose Berrios faces the A’s during his three seasons in the major leagues.Berrios took no decision his last time out despite holding the White Sox to a run on four hits and a pair of walks while striking out four over five innings of work in a game that included a 52-minute rain delay.“Give Jose a lot of credit,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said. “We were right on the edge there of putting him back out there. Just concerned about how much time went by. He did a nice job of putting up some zeroes after the delay.”Berrios had just started throwing his warmup pitches for the second inning when the game was delayed but Molitor decided to send him back out when play resumed.“I didn’t want to come out of the game,” Berrios said. “I kept myself warm, and that’s why they kept me in the game. I didn’t really play catch. Just move around, stretch myself, roll out my arm. When (Molitor) figured out what time we were going to start, I went into my routine: play catch and then go to the mound.”He’s looking for his first victory since Aug. 4. In three starts since, he has a 5.68 ERA over 12 2/3 innings of work. LOS ANGELES — There will be no need for scoreboard watching when the National League West leaders meet Monday at Dodger Stadium http://www.redsoxproshops.com/authentic-dustin-pedroia-jersey , at least not the out-of-town scoreboard anyway.The first-place Colorado Rockies and the second-place Los Angeles Dodgers will begin their final three-game series of the season against each other. The Dodgers are the five-time defending division champions, which makes the Rockies the upstarts in the chase.To combat the Dodgers’ experience in situations like a key late-game series, Rockies manager Bud Black will lean more on his veterans over the next few weeks.Article continues below ...“The guys who have been in Septembers before, you’ll see that,” Black said, according to the Denver Post. “Probably, for the most part, when teams have that experience Babe Ruth Jersey , teams use it.”The Rockies will head into the duel coming off a 3-2 victory at San Francisco, but over its last 10 games, Colorado has lost as many it has won. The Rockies had been shut out for 20 consecutive innings before scoring three times in the second inning Sunday.The Dodgers, meanwhile, will enter their final homestand of the season coming off a 6-4 road trip that inexplicably included two losses at Cincinnati against the last-place Reds and ended with a 5-0 loss at St. Louis on Sunday. The Dodgers won two-of-three games at Colorado to start that trip.The Dodgers are in a fight for the division now, in part because of their 1-6 record against the lowly Reds this year. But they have four consecutive division opponents on the schedule to close out the season, giving them a chance to decide things on their own terms.“We knew all along we controlled our own destiny,” manager Dave Roberts said http://www.redsoxproshops.com/authentic-david-ortiz-jersey , according to the Los Angeles Times, when the Dodgers took over first place with a 17-4 victory Saturday at St. Louis.Jon Gray (11-7, 4.80 ERA) will pitch in the series opener for the Rockies, and while he has helped the Rockies to a 9-2 record in his 11 starts since returning from a Triple-A demotion, he has a 5.59 ERA in two starts against the Dodgers this year.The Dodgers will counter with left-hander Hyun Jin-Ryu (4-3 2.42), who has a 2.67 ERA in six starts since returning from the disabled list because of a groin strain. But the Dodgers are just 3-3 in those games and Ryu was the losing pitcher in one of those defeats at Cincinnati.And in those six Ryu starts, he has not gone over 89 pitches in any of them, creating reliance on a bullpen that has struggled at times and has dominating at other times over the last six weeks.After Ryu pitches Bobby Doerr Jersey , the Dodgers will close out the series with their two best pitchers: veteran Clayton Kershaw and rookie Walker Buehler. If the Dodgers can win the opener their confidence will only soar from there. Kershaw and Buehler both pitched the Dodgers to a victory at St. Louis.In 10 career starts against the Dodgers, Gray is 3-3 with a 3.83 ERA over 51 2/3 innings. In nine career starts against the Rockies, Ryu is just 3-6 with a 5.77 ERA over 43 2/3 innings.