After watching last night's opener at McAfee Coliseum in Oakland, you might've thought the Yankees would score 1,200+ runs this year and go undefeated. It sure looked that way. The Yankees, however, were brought back to Earth tonight after Scott Proctor served up a game-winning single in the 9th inning to Marco Scutaro as the A's defeated the Yankees by a score of 4-3. Mike Mussina had a pretty decent game in his season debut, giving up only five hits and striking out six in 7 innings, but two of those hits were home runs off the bats of Nick Swisher and Eric Chavez. Johnny Damon and Alex Rodriguez each had two hits and Jorge Posada drove in two, but the Yankees didn't muster much more than that on offense as the A's bullpen was very effective in relief of Rich Harden.

Maybe it's because the season's just beginning, or perhaps I'm still just not familiar enough with Kyle Farnsworth, but I thought it might have been a better idea to leave him in for a second inning than to throw Proctor in there in the bottom of the 9th inning. In that critical part of the game I just think I'd like to see someone a little more reliable in there. Bottom of the 9th in a tie game doesn't really seem like the situation for a guy who struggles with his control as much as Proctor does. It's not like any of the other guys have been "overused" already and the Yankees have a day off Thursday.

Oh well, can't win 'em all but that first loss is always a stinger inside. The Yankees will try to bounce back tomorrow night as they send Chien-Ming Wang to the mound to face Dan Haren. Chien-Ming Wang is coming off a very solid rookie season and was a crucial part of the Yankees success last season. Haren is coming off a decent season himself, as he went 14-12 last year with a 3.73 E.R.A. in his first year with the A's.