The Yankees went from playing the best team in the worst stadium, the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field, to playing the worst team in the worst open-air stadium at the best stadium, the Oakland Athletics not at the Oakland Coliseum but at Yankee Stadium II. The A's, struggling to win anything, including a new ballpark deal in Oakland to the point where they seem to be moving to Las Vega, might have been just what the Yankees needed after a bad weekend in St. Petersburg.
Nestor Cortés started, and gave up 4 hits and a walk, but no runs, over the 1st 5 innings. But it took until the bottom of the 5th for the injury-riddled, weak-hitting Yankees to support him. Harrison Bader led off with a triple, and Oswaldo Cabrera hit a home run, to make it 2-0.
Cortés got into trouble in the 6th, as the A's loaded the bases with nobody out. Aaron Boone replaced him with Ron Marinaccio. Thanks to a double play, Marinaccio managed to get out of it with only 2 runs scoring. It goes into the books as a blown save, but it was hardly a bad performance. At any rate, the game was now tied.
A good team would have done something about it immediately. The Yankees did: After Anthony Volpe led off the bottom of the 6th by striking out -- remember, as big a prospect as he is, he is still a rookie -- Gleyber Torres hit a home run, Anthony Rizzo singled, and DJ LeMahieu hit a home run. In the 7th, Jose Trevino singled, and Aaron Hicks hit a home run. The crowd had been booing his every appearance, but with his 1st dinger of the year, he got some cheers. (He's still batting just .153.)
Ian Hamilton pitched a perfect 7th. Nick Ramirez pitched a scoreless 8th and 9th. Yankees 7, A's 2. WP: Marinaccio (2-1). No save. LP: JP Sears (0-3).
The series continues tonight. Clarke Schmidt -- oy -- starts against Drew Rucinski.
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