Luke Hochevar has been awful this year and Brandon McCarthy has been great, but as we know with McCarthy who is coming off 2 weeks of not pitching he pitches much better at home in the big ball park. His ERA is more than double on the road and he makes a day start where the Royals are 6th with a .754 OPS. He can't give up any runs the way the A's have been hitting. Over their last 10 they are scoring just 1.21 runs per 9 and a .148 average vs. RHP. That's huge for Luke Hocevars confidence.
Hochevar gets the start and he faces the A's who are 29th in OPS vs. RHP, but are 30th with a .578 OPS during day games. Hochevar has faced probably the most challenging schedule thus far. He faced the Angels in his first start of the year who are currently 20th in OPS VS. RHP, and since he's faced 8 teams that ranked no higher than 12th in OPS vs. RHP. Now he gets the A's at home during the day and he'll have a great chance to improve on his unlucky .363 BABIP.
