The Yankees played a home series this weekend, against the team currently known as simply "The Athletics" -- formerly Philadelphia, Kansas City and Oakland, and, they hope, soon to be Las Vegas.
Friday night was a "hole in the rotation" game, but Will Warren filled it well, pitching 5 shutout innings. The bullpen allowed just 1 hit and no walks the rest of the way. The Yankees only got 4 hits themselves, but 1 was a home run by Jazz Chisholm, 1 an RBI single by Cody Bellinger, and 1 an RBI single by DJ LeMahieu, and they won, 3-0.
But, on Saturday, they got handcuffed by former Yankee JP Sears, getting only 2 hits off him and 1 off reliever Jack Perkins. Clarke Schmidt, who pitched 7 no-hit innings in his last start, was not good, allowing 4 runs in 6 innings. The A's won, 7-0.
The Yanks made the A's pay dearly for that yesterday. Chisholm homered in the 2nd inning. The Yankees scored 4 runs in the 3rd, including a bases-clearing triple by Chisholm. Aaron Judge, who explained his drop from batting .400 to .356 with a bad back, hit home runs in the 4th and the 7th. Bellinger hit a home run in the 5th. And, just as it was a former Yankee who shut them down the day before, so, too, was this onslaught against a former Yankee: Luis Severino.
That kind of onslaught deserved some good pitching. Marcus Stroman came off the Injured List, and allowed just 1 run over 5 innings. JT Brubaker was awful in the 6th, but the rest of the bullpen pitched shutout ball, and the Yankees won, 12-5.
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We are now past the numerical halfway point of the season. The Yankees are 48-35, on a pace to finish 94-68. They lead the American League Eastern Division by a game and a half over the Tampa Bay Rays, 3 over the Toronto Blue Jays, 8 over the Boston Red Sox, and 12 over the Baltimore Orioles.
On to Toronto for 4 against the Jays. Then, 3 in Flushing, including a 4th of July "day game after a night game," against The Other Team.
1 comment:
At the risk of potentially being a case of "be careful of what you wish for" I still hope the Yankees at least does something in the trade deadline to help themselves in this race. I know it's the pesky Blue Jays but these abortions of performances in that series and the struggle this past month, we're not really that much better than the Mets if anything at all. I know our team somehow never won in year 4 and 5 but even then I still want them to make the playoffs. The Yankees needs to snap out of it soon and make this an early summer slump than 2022 second half that gave fans trust issues from this point on.
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