23 July 2012  The Oakland A's Swept the Yankees, Still Won't
Make Playoffs  I'm not sure whether I was more surprised to see
that the Yankees suffered a 4-game sweep by the Oakland A's this
weekend or that they still have the best record in baseball
after four straight losses.  In case you weren't paying
attention, the Yankees had been firing on all cylinders for most
of the last two months.  Since the season's nadir on May 21st,
when they lost badly (6-0) to the lowly Kansas City Royals and
stood 5.5 games behind the Orioles (!) at 21-21, the Yankees had
won nearly three out of every four games (36-13) coming into
this four game series in the Oakland Mausoleum.  They had scored
5.3 runs per game in that span, owing largely to having hit 85
of their MLB-leading 150 home runs in those 49 games.  And the
injured Brett Gardner never even took a swing in pinstripes. 
The team ERA was a sparkling 3.31 during that stretch, with
Hiroki Kuroda and Ivan Nova picking up half a dozen Wins each
and Phil Hughes and CC Sa