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!

I'm excited about Sean Doolittle for a lot of reasons. Once upon a time, my excitement revolved around the 2009 spring training buzz from scouts that Doolittle was major league ready, could hit well in the big leagues, and might be a gold glove caliber 1Bman.

The next thing we heard about Doolittle was that he had blown out his knee, and then we got alternating reports of bad news and no news, and then -- when he had seemingly faded from obscurity -- came the news this past off-season that the A's were converting him to be a pitcher -- where he had also excelled at the University of Virginia.

And so far so great. Topping out, reportedly, at 96-97MPH, single-A hitters were putty in Doolittle's hands, as the lefty put up a line of 10.1 IP, 5 hits, 1 ER, 2 BB, 21 K. Promoted to AA, Doolittle has continued to excel: 10 IP, 2 hits, 1 ER, 4 BB, 17 K. In 21.1 IP, that's 7 hits, 2 ER, 6 BBs, and 38 Ks.

Now to the "undervalued" part...

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There isn't much to write about today. The Athletics just dropped two of three to the slegnA at home, and managed to put up only one run and four hits in the last two games combined. The totals for the entire series were 3 runs and 10 hits. So, the offense is still terrible. All the same players are still on the DL. The starting rotation is still young, wild, and developing. The bullpen is still more "hit or miss" than "swing and miss." None of those sound like very appealing things to write about, nor to read about.

This is about the time that things fell apart last season after a promising start; the 2011 A's were also 22-23, and kept things stable long enough to stretch that record to 27-27. Things came to a screeching halt after that, though, as Oakland went on a 10-game losing streak from which they never recovered. That streak began on May 30th, the day that the New York Yankees came to town, with Bartolo Colon throwing a shutout in the opener. Flash forward to 2012, and the Yankees are coming to town again tomorrow, May 25th. Colon will pitch in the series, albeit for the A's. The parallels are not difficult to find, and I don't think that anyone wants to read about them. Happy thoughts!

Therefore, I am going to focus on one of the bright spots of the 2012 Oakland A's: The right field bleachers.

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