YANKEES GET SIX IN THE 7TH INNING
New York comes from behind to defeat Oakland
Baseball's version of natural selection eventually played out Monday night when the New York Yankees came back to beat the Athletics 9-5 at Yankee Stadium.
The Yankees own baseball's best record at 54-20. The Athletics have the worst record in the majors at 25-50.
The A's led by as much as 5-1 in the third inning, but New York had a six-run seventh with Oakland contributing a walk, a hit batter and two catcher's interference calls on Sean Murphy. Yankees sluggers Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge both reached base because their bats struck Murphy's glove while swinging at a pitch. Both are scored as errors on the catcher.
The Yankees also had three hits in the inning, getting tworun doubles from Josh Donaldson (against A.J. Puk) and Jose Trevino (against Austin Pruitt) and a run-scoring single from Marwin Gonzalez (also against Pruitt).
There two hits in the inning were two-run doubles from Josh Donaldson (against A.J. Puk) and Jose Trevino (against Austin Pruitt).
The A's, who were coming off a modest two-game win streak, have now lost Game 1 of 10 consecutive series and are 5-18 in the month of June.
The Yankees had home runs from Anthony Rizzo (his 20th) and Stanton (his 17th) against starter Paul Blackburn, who departed after five innings with a 5-3 lead. The A's managed to keep Judge in the park but he did have a run-scoring single in the fifth. Judge leads the majors with 28 home runs.
Blackburn struck out a career-high seven and had a 5-0 road record, but was lifted by manager Mark Kotsay after 91 pitches in favor of Oller. Oller got out of the sixth but things went south for the Athletics in the seventh.
Albert Abreu (1-0), who came on for Jordan Montgomery in the seventh, got the win for the Yankees. Puk (1-1) took the loss for the Athletics.
Long before the game went sideways, the Athletics conjured up some more two-out magic in their five-run third inning. Ramon Laureano narrowly missed a three-run home run with a ball that bounced off the top of the left-field fence, tying the game 1-1.
After starter Montgomery hit Murphy with a pitch on an 0-2 count to load the bases, Elvis Andrus cleared the bases with a double down the left-field line to make it 4-1, and Sheldon Neuse lined a single to right for a fifth run.
In their 5-3 win over Kansas City Sunday, all of their runs came with two out.
The Athletics, however, were unable to add any additional runs after the third inning.
Notable
• Jonah Bride, who started all 12 games since being promoted from Triple-A Las Vegas, was not in the lineup after an outfield collision with Chad Pinder Sunday in Kansas City. Bride has a shoulder injury and cut the bridge of his nose.
“They did another test today,” Kotsay said. “They're going to continue to evaluate, see the progress he makes and decide where to go from there.”
• Outfielder Stephen Piscotty, who has missed 49 games with a left calf strain, will join the team in New York Tuesday but may not be activated immediately, Kotsay said.
• Seth Brown came in hitting .440 in his last six games but was out of the starting lineup against the left-handed Montgomery.
Brown is hitting .167 (6for-36) against left-handed pitching.
• Centerfielder Cristian Pache had two line-drive outs which came off the bat at 108 miles per hour and 105 miles per hour.
• The A's will send Frankie Montas (3-7, 3.20) to the mound against the Yankees Tuesday night. The Yankees are rumored to be interested in dealing for Montas before the trade deadline to fortify an already-strong pitching staff.