Selective outbursts on offense aren’t likely going to be enough to carry the Yankees in 2024. Even after winning tonight, they’ve scored in just 4 of their last 43 innings, all at home. A five-run seventh on Friday got them a win over Tampa Bay, and after a 10-inning shutout on Saturday, they took the series against the Rays with a four-run fifth on Sunday. Another dud followed yesterday, but once more, the Yankees rebounded with a win backed by one good inning.
On Tuesday night, the Yankees jumped on Oakland starter Paul Blackburn for a four-run first, quickly seizing a 4-1 advantage. They never did anything after that, causing the rest of the game to be a bit of a nail-biter with the A’s cutting the lead to 4-3 by the fourth. It wasn’t easy, but the Yankees’ pitching staff held down the fort and clinched the one-run victory.
The ballgame got off to a bumpy start for the Yankees. Marcus Stroman retired the first couple batters without issue and got ahead of Brent Rooker 0-2. The DH battled back to walk, and a few pitches later, Seth Brown smacked one of those awkward sinking liners to right field. Juan Soto took a weird approach to it before coming up with an unsuccessful dive on a ball that probably should’ve ultimately just been played on a hop. Running on contact, Rooker came all the way around to score, putting Oakland up by one.
Give credit to the Yankees’ offense though, as they were determined to not look as shoddy as they have for the vast majority of this homestand — at least to start. Soto atoned for his miscue by lacing a single and Aaron Judge followed with an excuse-me double (.100 xBA) down the left-field line. Giancarlo Stanton took advantage of Blackburn’s bad luck by crushing a more legitimate two-bagger to left-center field to put New York in front, 2-1.
Veteran that he is, Anthony Rizzo cannily observed how good it is to score runs and decided to not only do so as well, but double the run total entirely!
Rizzo’s two-run homer came at the end of a well-executed, seven-pitch at-bat. He’s quietly someone who the Yankees need to get going, as he’d only gone deep in one of his first 23 games, and even at age-34, he’s capable of much more than that.
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Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images
The A’s did chip away off Stroman, though. Solo shots by Shea Langeliers in the second and Lawrence Butler in the fourth made it a 4-3 affair. Langeliers went yard on a slurve that hung up in the zone, while Butler simply yanked a low slider that barely cleared the ground into the short porch in right field.
Meanwhile, the Yankees went back to sleep on offense after their big first inning off Blackburn. He retired 17 of the last 18 Yanks he faced, allowing just an infield single to Anthony Volpe to second and nothing more. They didn’t do anything against relievers T.J. McFarland or Austin Adams, either, with the former tossing a perfect seventh and the latter escaping a two-on, one-out jam with a Soto double-play ball and a short Stanton pop after a Judge HBP. I’m glad that the Yanks eked it out and I’m not a glass-half-empty guy by nature, but I cannot emphasize enough that they still have to do much better than this because this isn’t a sustainable strategy.
Thankfully, the ‘pen, defense, and bad umping (sorry) came through to win this one. Stroman fanned nine, but departed after 5.1 innings with a man on, yielding three runs on seven hits in total. Ron Marinaccio made his case for staying in the bullpen mix by retiring the two men who went deep, striking out Butler and inducing a grounder from Langeliers. He departed after a walk and a popup in the seventh, giving way to Caleb Ferguson. Volpe made a nice play on a slow grounder for the force, and Ferguson got a fly ball to Soto to end the frame.
Ferguson fanned Brown to start the eighth, and Dennis Santana took over. He only did his job in the sense that Don Liddle did his job against Vic Wertz in the 1954 World Series. Tyler Nevin and Zack Gelof both made hard contact, and each time, Judge had to make a nice play in center field to get the out. Phew!
Clay Holmes entered for the save, and he retired the A’s in order … albeit with a big assist from John Tumpane. The home-plate umpire had called a frustrating game for both teams, and two of his called third strikes with Holmes on the mound were actually out of the zone. The second, to Max Schuemann, ended the game. Between this and Hunter Wendelstedt’s theatrics yesterday, it’s been a bad look for the MLBUA.
The Yankees and A’s will reconvene tomorrow night for the third showdown of this four-game set in the Bronx. Clarke Schmidt draws rookie right-hander Joe Boyle, a fifth-round pick in the 2020 MLB Draft who has just seven career starts under his belt. First pitch will be at 7:05pm ET. May the umping be better!
