Miller slams door on Yankee Stadium split
The legend of Mason Miller continues to grow.
The A's closer needed 17 pitches to get the four outs, three by strikeout, averaging 100.8 mph with eight fastballs to slam the door on the New York Yankees 3-1 on Thursday at Yankee Stadium. The A's split the four-game series, with Miller also earning a save in the opener.
Thursday, Miller got Aaron Judge to fly out to right on a slider with a runner on for his first fourout save.
“Obviously it's a pretty special fastball, but he's got feel for his slider,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “So he's not just 80, here it comes. He mixes it up. It's100-plus miles an hour and it looks like that up close. They, obviously, look like they've got a good one at the back end.”
Miller, who is perfect in six save chances, struck out six of eight batters in the series and has fanned 23 in 11 1/3 innings this season.
The A's, who conclude a 10-game East Coast trip with three games at Baltimore, got an early lead when Nick Allen and Tyler Nevin homered in the third inning off Nestor Cortes (12), and Alex Wood (1-2) escaped bases-loaded trouble in the first and fourth innings.
Oakland scored three runs or fewer for the seventh straight game and 17th time this season. The A's also homered for the 10th straight game.
Allen, son-in-law of
Boone's older brother Bret, hit his first homer since Aug. 25 to tie the score in the third. Nevin, whose father Phil Boone's bench coach from 2018-21, homered into the right field short porch.
Nevin, whose father Phil Nevin was the Yankees' bench coach under Boone from 2018 to 2021, followed with a drive into the short porch in right for a 3-1 lead.
Wood allowed one run and eight hits, lowering his ERA from 7.89 to 6.59. Cortes allowed three runs and five hits in seven innings.
• Before the game the A's placed second baseman Zack Gelof on the 10day injured list Thursday because of a strained left oblique.
Gelof was a late scratch from Wednesday's game after feeling pain during his pregame routine and an MRI showed the lowgrade strain. The IL move was retroactive to Wednesday.
“He went through his pregame routine and we decided to take a cautious side and I think if it was into September, he probably would have played, though, if you asked him but being that it's April, I'm glad we're erring on the side of caution,” Kotsay said before Oakland's series finale against the New York Yankees.
Gelof is hitting .196 with two homers and two RBIs in 24 games. His two-run, ninth-inning homer Monday off Victor González lifted the A's to a 2-0 win.
“We're hopeful that it's a short period of time as opposed to a long period of time,” Kotsay said.