A.J. Griffin will try and shutdown the Rays offense tonight in Oakland. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-US PRESSWIRE

On the hill for the first game of the series for the Oakland A’s will be rookie pitcher A.J. Griffin.  Griffin continues to pitch well and will try and continue his success tonight at the Coliseum.  He is coming off of three consecutive wins, this coming after three consecutive no decisions.  During his consecutive wins, Griffin owns a 2.50 ERA with 18 strikeouts during this stretch.  He will need to give everything he has tonight since he will be facing one of the best pitchers in baseball, David Price.

David Price will be starting tonight for the Tampa Bay Rays.  Price has also been pitching very well as of late.  In his last three starts, Price is 3-0 with a 1.27 ERA and 25 strikeouts.  These stats are just a small portion of what he has been doing all year.  On the season, David Price has an astounding  14-4 record, a 2.57 ERA, and ranks 6th among A.L starting pitchers with 130 K’s.  To say the A’s will have their work cut out for them tonight would be an understatement.

DownSide: The Athletics are coming off a loss where they scored only one run and struck out 14 times.  Meanwhile, David Price has only allowed one earned run in his last two starts and has struck out 17 batters.

UpSide: Oakland is 18-4 in the Month of July and are 17-10 on the season against teams in the American League East.  They will try and build on both of those records over the next three games.

Probable Pitchers

Game 2: James Shields (8-7, 4.52 ERA) vs Tommy Milone (9-7, 3.51 ERA)

Game 3: Alex Cobb (4-8, 4.93 ERA) vs Jarrod Parker (7-4, 3.38 ERA)

April 11, 2012; Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-US PRESSWIRE

Joel Peralta to left leading of the top of the 12th. With a pump of the fist, Gomes had been the difference maker despite playing less then half the game. Shortly thereafter when Grant Balfour closed out the game the A’s had a victory in Tampa Bay. Becoming only the second visiting team to do so in 2012.

With his mohawk flowing, and his tattooed muscles bulging Jonny Gomes resembles more biker than baseball player. Upon each home run hit, he circles the bases at a pace only slightly slower than Adam Rosales. That’s fast in A’s terminology, folks. As he crosses home plate, he rips his batting helmet off exposing his gravity defying locks, bashes forearms with the on deck hitter and heads into the dugout making a point to pound fists and high five with each teammate. When relegated to the bench, he is amongst the first to rise to congratulate a teammate offering enthusiasm and encouragement in infinite amounts.

Providing the A’s with an intangible that has been lacking in recent years. Heart. Well, power too but for the sake of the article  let’s focus on heart. Miles and miles of heart. In essence to the A’s, he’s the anti-Matt Holiday. He swings hard, runs hard, and plays hard for a his a team he dreamt of playing for as a child. He signed to play for the A’s willingly, spoke of his love for the organization, and although his play has been split primarily at DH with Seth Smith he has thrilled fans with his moon shot home runs and his full effort play having many fans clamoring for more.

What many fans don’t realize is that all that Jonny Gomes has accomplished in professional baseball so far, and all that he will achieve came some close to never happening. During the winter of 2002, he suffered a heart attack at the young age of 22. The attack was the result of a clogged artery and came out of nowhere.  These kind of things just don’t happen to 22 year olds with a clean bill of health. They don’t happen to professional athletes. They don’t happen to people with 8 % body fat. They don’t happen to athletes who stay clean and pass every steroid and substance test with flying colors. Yet, this happened to Jonny Gomes and it nearly took his life. He ignored the symptoms for 27 hours. Sleeping through the chest pains and tingling feelings in his arms, he only headed to the hospital after briefly losing consciousness after eating dinner with his brother. As doctors ran a myriad of tests, concluding that a pinched coronary artery was the cause of the attack, he was alerted that if he had fallen asleep once more it may have been for the last time. The heart attack, had no lasting physical effects on Gomes. He has received a clean bill of health ever since, and Tampa Bay trainers kept nitroglycerin pills on hand for years after, in case he ever suffered another attack. Thankfully, they never had to be used.

Jonny Gomes plays the game the right way. He doesn’t play for money, or fame. He plays with such energy and determination, that it is spreading to each of his teammates providing an identity and a positive focus on a franchise that so desperately needs it. Perhaps, the A’s have found a player who offers something that can’t be measured as a statistic. Heart. You gotta have heart.

Devin Pangaro can be found ranting and raving about all things green and gold on twitter @devinpangaro, and please follow my fellow Swingin’ A’s scribes @FS_SwinginAs or like us on Facebook

Tommy Milone (4-2, 4.42 ERA) was uncharacteristically wild in the 1st inning, walking 3, hitting a batter, and ultimately surrendering 4 runs before a 6-4-3 double play bailed him out.  Normally, this would be grounds for most A’s fans to shut off the TV or radio and go out and enjoy a beautiful Bay Area day, and many of them may have done that.  But those who stuck with the A’s were handsomely rewarded.

Go-Inge, Go-Inge, GONE!!!! Brandon Inge smokes a 3 run homer to give the A's the lead. (Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE)

TURNING POINT: A sharp line drive RBI single by Yoenis Cespedes in the top of the 3rd inning, followed by a well placed jam shot by Petaluma’s own Jonny Gomes got the A’s on the board by cutting the lead in half.  But Brandon Inge, occupier of the former black hole known as A’s starting 3rd baseman unloaded on a 3-1 fastball from Rays phenom lefty Matt Moore and put the A’s ahead 5-4, giving them a lead they would not relinquish.

ON THE HILL: Tommy Milone fought through 5 innings, giving up 5 ER, on 5 hits, with 4 walks, and a single strikeout enabling him to qualify for the win.  This will be balanced out when he takes a hard luck loss at some point on a gem performance, welcome to Oakland Tommy.  The bullpen (Blevins, Cook, Fuentes, Norberto) took the reigns for the final 4 innings, giving up just a single and 3 walks without a single Ray touching home.  What has been a major question mark throughout this season has seemingly fallen into place (knock on wood).

AT THE PLATE: Brandon Inge at the very least gave us a glimpse of what most teams expect to get from their starting 3B, going 1-2 with 2 walks, a homerun, a sacrifice fly, tallying 4 RBI in the process.  Jonny Gomes showed his former squad just what they’ve been missing with his aforementioned RBI bloop single, coupled with a missile down the left field line to plate another.  Daric Barton saw fit to swing the bat and hit it all the way to the warning track (I kid) for a 2-run double following Gomes’ own double and an IBB to Babe… I mean Brandon Inge.  Eric Sogard, proud owner of the .148 AVG, and Anthony Recker pretty emphatically demonstrated why they were batting 8th and 9th in today’s lineup going 1-8 with 6 runners stranded between the two (5 for Recker).

FINAL THOUGHTS: The pitching wasn’t there, but the bats managed to pick up the slack.  The Rays are good, really really good, and the A’s should feel really confident in their ability to win after this game, this series, this week.  They were dealt a major gut punch by the Baltimore Orioles last weekend, so to see the team regroup and take advantage of a train wreck team in Boston, and simply out play an extremely talented Rays team at the Trop is very encouraging.  Going into the trip most fans probably thought 4-5 would have been acceptable, so switching it up and having a winning road trip at 5-4 is really sweet.  An up and coming Toronto Blue Jays team will travel to the O.co Coliseum for a quick 2 game series (I mean 2 games within 24 hours quick), the test for this young team continues, lets see if they’re up to the challenge.

Check me out on Twitter @SeanD25, see my take on everything else baseball at Baseball Obsessed, and follow everything Swingin’ A’s @FS_SwinginAs.