Bay Area baseball is in for an exciting 2015 regular season.  The Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants have a lot to prove in their respective leagues.
The A’s open their season hosting the Texas Rangers and the defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants will be headed to Arizona to open their season the same day, April 6.
The Oakland A’s 2014 season ended with extra innings in the American League Wild Card last October to the eventual AL champion Kansas City Royals.  In the offseason, the A’s lost what seemed like most of their roster, but at the same time they made some great gains with designated hitter, Billy Butler and infielders: Brett Lawrie, Marcus Semein and Ben Zobrist to name a few.
The top of the starting rotation will remain exciting to watch, as   Sonny Grey and 2014 all star, Scott Kazmir, will return for the A’s. Their bullpen will have to be without closer  Sean Doolittle for a month or so due to injury. They will have new reliever, Tyler Clippard, to fill in for Doolittle in that role.
The Giants ended the 2014 campaign by winning their third World Series championship in five years by defeating the Royals in seven games.  The biggest loss for the Giants was clearly their third baseman, Pablo Sandoval, going to the Boston Red Sox. Along with Sandoval being gone, the Giants will be missing a huge presence in their lineup as Hunter Pence is out with a broken arm for about another month.
The pitching rotation (led by World Series MVP, Madison Bumgarner) will be one to watch from the No. 1 starter to their No. 5 starter. The Giants will get their old ace back, Matt Cain, from injury as he will be another one to watch out for in the 2015 season.
This will be a great season for the Bay Area rivalry as the Giants and A’s will be facing off in two series during the upcoming season. The first of the two series will take place during July in San Francisco, and the second will be held in Oakland during late September.