We've given up our dislike of this whole interleague baseball thing years ago when we realized that things like the Yankees coming to town for a series against the Gints is a pretty cool thing. The same with a set in Fenway also coming this summer. As for the yearly Melee by the Bay, we've sort of acquired a feeling of meh towards the whole thing. It's done every year so there's really not that much of a difference between this series and, say, a Giants/Phillies series or an A's/Indians series.

Well, maybe it’s a bit more exciting than that.

Part of it is because there's no real animosity between fans of the teams or an intense rivalry going on between them. Sure, the front offices probably throw spitballs at each other at league meetings and, sure, Giants fans may think A's fans are non-existent at best and habitués of Antioch at the worst while A's fans think Giants fans are fair weather corporate Yuppies out schmoozing clients at the site of a team that hasn't won anything on this side of the Mississippi River, but it's not that intense. But who cares about us? As the stadiums are packed on both sides of the Bay, the front offices have to pretty happy with these things.

Needless to say, this should be an interesting series because, as we said earlier, both teams are in a way similar and completely dissimilar at the same time. Similar because they both feature excellent starting pitching and rather weak offenses (both teams seem to play one run games everytime they step on the field). Opposite because the A's philosophy is to go with a bunch of young kids and "who the hell is that guy" players while the Giants' philosophy is to go with a bunch of old geezers and "does he still play?" players and throw them on the back of Barry Lamar.

The real question for this series is will anyone actually score any runs. Both teams have their aces going and these look like the kind of games managers call for bunts in the early innings because one run could be enough to win the game. Our prediction? Offense galore just because whenever everyone talks about the pitching, the hitters go nuts. The other thing of interest is that, yes, tonight's game will have Barry Zito facing his old mates for the first time since he switched sides.

For those of you keeping score, here's the rotations for the series

Zito vs. Gaudin
Cain vs Haren
Morris vs. Kennedy

Let the games begin