Judge hits 1st slam, Yankees beat A’s 9-5
NEW YORK » Aaron Judge hit his first career grand slam and the New York Yankees took full advantage of Oakland’s shoddy defense Sunday in a 9-5 victory over the Athletics.
Michael Pineda (6-2) tossed six innings of three-hit ball to win his third straight start. Aaron Hicks and Chris Carter each had an early sacrifice fly as the AL East leaders scored five unearned runs and took two of three in a well-pitched series.
Judge connected with two outs in the third for his 16th home run, tying Mike Trout of the Angels for the big league lead. The drive landed in the right-field seats, not far in front of The Judge’s Chambers cheering section installed by the Yankees for the 6-foot-7 rookie at the start of this 4-2 homestand.
Khris Davis hit his 15th home run for the A’s, who committed two more costly errors to raise their season total to 49. They began the day with 10 more than any other team in the majors.
The fielding failures put starter Andrew Triggs (5-4) in tough situations. He went six innings and gave up one earned run — but even that could have been prevented if not for a poor throw by the weak-armed Davis in left.
Gary Sanchez added an RBI double in the seventh that squirmed out of the glove of a diving Davis. Brett Gardner drove in two insurance runs with a pop-fly double in the eighth.
Adam Warren retired all four batters he faced for his first save since July 28, 2015.
The Yankees trailed 2-1 when Ronald Torreyes reached on a soft infield single leading off the third, and Sanchez singled with one out. Matt Joyce then dropped Matt Holliday’s fly ball in the right-field corner for an error that loaded the bases.
After Starlin Castro struck out, Judge lined a fastball the other way to put New York ahead. Triggs had given up just three home runs in his first nine starts this year.
Hicks stole second in the fourth and advanced to third on a throwing error by catcher Josh Phegley. That set up Carter’s sacrifice fly, which made it 6-2.
And while Triggs’ defense was betraying him, New York’s fielders gave Pineda a big boost when he needed it.
With nobody out in the second, Ryon Healy was thrown out by Gardner trying to stretch a two-run single to left field. Torreyes followed with a diving play at third base.