OAKLAND -- Second time's a charm for these A's, or so it seemed.
It was natural to question just why they would go through with the same plan that played out so disastrously three days prior. They did it anyway, using a reliever as an "opener" to start a bullpen game at the Coliseum on Tuesday. The A's looked like geniuses for doing so, holding the Yankees scoreless over six innings before turning things over to their plus arms.
Yet, in a rare sequence, Jeurys Familia walked in the game-tying run in the seventh, and Fernando Rodney offered up a go-ahead homer to Luke Voit to open the eighth, the A's unable to answer back in a 5-1 loss to the Yankees that evened this three-game series.