This has been a series to forget for A's fans who have their hopes pinned to Tommy Milone to stop the bleeding. Milone is the owner of a 4-0 record and 0.60 ERA at the Coliseum this year. In addition to those sparkling numbers he also has managed to hold opponents to a .158/.206/.218 slash line in Oakland, with a .179 wOBA. That record will be put to the test by a Yankees team that has pummeled Oakland pitching for two days. The A's meanwhile will try their luck with Hiroki Kuroda who is having a career worst year since moving over the American League where he faces the prospect of facing real lineups day-in-day out. In 53 1/3 innings in 2012, Kuroda has a career worst 5.7 K/9, career worst 3.4 BB/9 and career worst 1.7 HR/9 leading to a career worst 4.56 ERA and a career worst 5.34. One can argue the luck is against him as he has a career worst .292 BABIP and career worst 19.6% HR/FB%.

The A's hope that Kuroda's struggles continue as they look to get show some offensive punch, or even these days more so, some offensive pulse. Outside of Josh Reddick no one has been doing much of anything these days. Today's lineup features Jemile Weeks leading off and Coco Crisp hitting second assuring that when Reddick comes up no one will be on base for him to drive in which explains why despite having 13 home runs and hitting in the middle of the order he has just 26 RBI, compared to Ryan Braun who has 13 and 34 RBI or Carlos Beltran who has 14 and 38 RBI. With a right-hander on the mound, Seth Smith fills the cleanup spot, followed by DH Kila Ka'aihue, following him is still-hitting-way-too-high-in-the-lineup Josh Donaldson, before being rounded out by Barton, Suzuki and Pennington.

The A's have been swept by New York at the Coliseum each of the last two seasons and hope to avoid that same fate today.

LET'S GO A'S!

I am going to go see the 2015 Oakland A's play in High Desert today, so Nico will have you covered for the post-game wrap and the mid-game keep on winning/rally thread. Have a safe and happy holidays everyone!

The last time the A's beat the Yankees in a season series was 2007. Since then things haven't exactly gone the A's way as they have played the Yankees to the tune of a 7-29 record a .194 winning percentage. For the point of proving just how bad a .194 winning percentage is that would translate to a 32-130 record in a 162 game schedule. Basically the Yankees' Mystique and Aura, may be a just dancers in a nightclub to Curt Schilling but appear to be much more to the players on the Athletics of Oakland.

Bill James in his infinite wisdom developed a method for looking at how often a team should beat another. Basically we all can accept the Yankees have had a better club than us all this time but in baseball the best teams win games about 60% of the time when the worst win about 40% of the time, so surely one team shouldn't be beating another over 80% of the time right?

His method, the log5 method. Basically goes like this:

W%(A v. B) = W%(A)*(1 - W%(B))/(W%(A)*(1 - W%(B)) + (1 - W%(A))*W%(B))

Using this and the winning percentages of the A's and the Yankees since 2008. We arrive that the A's really ought to have won 14 of the 36 games. Twice what they have won. No one expects the A's to light the world on fire against New York but still, even as hapless as we've been as a team, we have been doubly hapless whenever we play New York.

Is it mystique and aura? Does their high flying offense trump our pitching every time for some other reason? Why is it New York has our number and how do we end this insanity?

Sometimes, the thing that you think is going to happen turns out to be exactly what actually happens. For example, Kurt Suzuki comes to the plate and hits a grounder to short. You pretty much saw that coming, right? Sometimes, though, life surprises us and throws us an unexpected turn of events. A few years ago, I was at a game in which Marco Scutaro hit a walk-off homer off of Mariano Rivera. What a twist!

Unfortunately, today's game fell into the former category. A New York Yankees lineup featuring 7 current or former All-Stars faced off against an Oakland Athletics lineup featuring 7 players hitting below .220, and the results were exactly what you would expect. The Yankees pounded out 14 hits, including 3 homers, and trounced the A's by a final score of 9-2.

There's no easy way to say it: Oakland looks bad right now. The rotation is struggling, and the lineup is abysmal. Hope inches ever closer, as it is possible that by the end of next week the team will finally have Yoenis Cespedes, Brandon Inge, and Manny Ramirez back in the lineup. Until then, though, the team is going to continue to be difficult to watch. Follow me after the jump for a look at today's contest.

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I think I saw this game yesterday. Homers by Reddick, Cano and Teixeira, and the Yankees lead 6-2. Oakland comes to bat in the 7th, which means....RALLY THREAD!

You may need to readjust the aspect ratio of your TV screen for this one. Today's pitching matchup will be best viewed in widescreen, as it features two of the largest men in Major League Baseball facing off on a pitcher's mound which might finish the day a couple inches lower than it started.

Last year, Bartolo Colon was on the Yankees. Today, he will be pitching against the Yankees. In the business world, this would be called a "demotion." In baseball, it's called "free agency." Last week, I got to see one of the best things I've ever seen before, when Colon strode to the plate for a couple of at-bats against the Giants. The sight of Colon stepping into the box was just pure gold. If he can make the Yankees' hitters look like he looked against Tim Lincecum, the A's may have a very good day. I would expect a couple of home runs and a handful of called third strikes, and a short hook for Colon (who has only thrown as many as 90 pitches four times this season).

To get you in the mood, here is an article from ESPN in 2008 regarding whether or not Sabathia's ample profile might earn him the uniform with the most pinstripies in Yankees' history. It's baseball time!

Lineups (Coco/Cowgill instead of Smith, Rosales instead of Kila/Barton, Donaldson hitting 5th...this is going to be a quick game. I'm excited; I've never seen a no-hitter before!):

I haven't had much time to watch the A's this year, because of my job and some other personal ventures. Is that Willingham guy still there? No? You mean Scott Sizemore has been carrying the offense? Hopefully he's providing enough run support for Gi.. oh...

Instead of another post about why I hate the Athletics' current opponents (and with the Yankees, there's a lot of hate to go around), I thought I'd ask you a question.

If you were a Major League batter or pitcher, what would your intro music be?

I got the idea from a NY Times blog, actually.

Personally, if I'm a hitter, I'd go with Tupac's All Eyez on Me (clean link). Closer? Jay-Z's U Don't Know (some explicit lyrics). Starting pitcher? Garth Brooks' Ain't Goin' Down (Til The Sun Comes Up). Yeah, I'm weird like that.

What would you pick? I found a list (not sure how accurate it is, though) of the A's players' choices. I'll post it after the jump.

The Athletics send Bartolo Colon to the hill to face CC Sabathia of the Yankees. 1:05 p.m. start.

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Ho hum; another game, another loss. Lost in the last week of poor play has been the magic of the first two months of the season, when the A's were consistently over the .500 mark. With tonight's boring loss to the Yankees, the A's slip to two games under .500, with little hope of resurfacing, unless some offensive help comes soon. If you're looking for a silver lining, the A's did score 3 runs tonight, a marked improvement on the last two games, and two of the runs came via the long ball.

Tyson Ross was pedestrian tonight, but was not helped by a huge error by Coco Crisp, opening the door for a two out rally by the Yankees; which would be the difference in the game.

The Yankees took advantage of the error by Coco in the fourth inning, after Ross wobbled, but put up three innings of zeros. After a strikeout, a single, and a strikeout in the fourth, the error allowed the run to score, but also let Teixeira hit in the inning, resulting in a homerun. Granted, those runs weren't earned, but Tyson Ross still gave up the homerun. Down 3-0, the A's would fight back with a solo homerun by Reddick in the fourth (his 12th), but Ross would give it right back up to the Yankees in the fifth. A solo homerun by Cano extended the lead to 4-1, and a two-run Swisher homerun (boy do I miss him) gave the Yankees a 6-1 lead.

The A's real chance was in the fifth inning, as a Donaldson single and a Barton double put runners on second and third with no outs, but an incredulous Kurt Suzuki watched as his sure base hit was caught for only a sac fly. The A's would tack one more on as Ka'aihue homered, but they would lose 6-3. Blevins and Miller mopped up nicely, but Tyson Ross' 4.1 inning, 6 run (3 ER) start buried the A's early.

We do it again tomorrow in the battle of the heavyweights; Colon vs. Sabathia. We'll see you here at 1PM.

Greetings from the gorgeous beach in Central California! I will be your game thread host for this amazing long vacation weekend, as we open the Friday Night (Drinking) Game Thread! The A's will be taking on the Yankees; this should be really fun with the A's current lineup and Tyson Ross pitching. Okay, okay, that's not entirely fair. The Yankees record is not much better than the A's right now, so here's to hoping we catch them at a down time.

The A's will be throwing out this lineup against Ivan Nova:

LET'S GO OAK-LAND!