(Photo: wallyg/flickr)

I apologize for disappearing for the last few days, but I am back now and so is my series previews!

As most of you know I despise interleague, so I have a series coming up this week to keep you from seeing snails and me from having to talk about fake baseball.

With that being said, I hope that this series goes a lot better than the last two interleague series as the A’s are now 1-5 in interleague this season with 12 more games to go.

The A’s will begin a 3-game series in Colorado tonight, it will be the first time the A’s have faced the Colorado Rockies (24-35) since 2009, when they were swept by the team at home.  The Rockies are currently on a 5-game losing streak and have lost 6 of their last 10.  The Rockies can hit, they are 4th in the league in runs scored and 3rd in slugging percentage.  The biggest weakness for this team is their pitching, being dead last in the entire league in almost all pitching categories including ERA (5.31), WHIP (1.60) and Quality starts.

Tuesday 5:40 PM PST: (RHP) Bartolo Colon (5-6) Vs (RHP) Jeremy Guthrie (3-4)

• Bartolo Colon was stellar in his last outing which was against the Texas Rangers.  Over 8 innings he only allowed 5 hits, walked 1 and struck out 5 while not allowing a run.  Colon has only faced the Rockies once in his career, in that game he allowed 2 earned runs over 6.1 innings.
• Jeremy Guthrie only lasted 3.1 innings in his last start against the Arizona Diamondbacks, he allowed 7 runs on 11 hits while striking out 4 and walking 2.  Guthrie has faced the A’s 8 times (7 starts) and has a career 2-3 record against Oakland with a 4.66 ERA and 5.6 SO/9 rate.

Wednesday 5:40 PM PST: (RHP) Brandon McCarthy (5-3) Vs (RHP) Alex White (2-4)

• Brandon McCathy was very good in his last outing, he only allowed 1 run on 3 hits over 7 innings against his former team, the Texas Rangers.  He also did not issue any walks and struck out 5.  This will be the first time McCathy will face the Colorado Rockies in his career.  Forget everything I just said about McCarthy, as I was about to publish this Jane Lee announced (via Twitter) that McCarthy has been scratched from his schedule start and is heading back to the Bay Area to have an MRI done on his shoulder.
• Alex White lasted 6 innings against the Angels in his last start, he allowed 4 runs on 8 hits, struck out 6 and walked none.  White has never faced the A’s in his career.

Thursday 11:10 AM PST: TBA Vs TBA

• Neither club has announced who will be starting for their teams on Thursday.  I expect Tom Milone should be starting for the A’s on Thursday, unless there is something we have not heard yet.

Keys to Success:

The A’s bats have heated up a little more recently, so in order to win they are going to have to continue hitting.  Hopefully the A’s can take advantage of the Rockies poor pitching and continue to score runs early and often.  Yoenis Cespedes may be back in the lineup as early as tomorrow, which will be a huge help for this lineup.

The biggest question mark for the A’s right now is the A’s pitching staff, with McCarthy now missing his next start it’s a matter of who will replace him in the rotation.  The Rockies can hit and the A’s have been handing out a few too many runs on the road recently.

Update:  Per Jane Lee Tom Milone will take Brandon McCarthy’s start on Wednesday and Jarrod Parker will be bumped up to start on Thursday.