Yanks drop another to the A’s

The A’s have one of the better pitching staffs in the league, so it’s not entirely surprising that they’ve held the Yankees to eight runs in the first two games of the series. What’s surprising is that they’ve scored 12 themselves. (Even more surprisingly, A.J. Burnett has yet to pitch in this series.) This sort of thing happens during the course of a 162-game season, so there’s no reason to get worked up about it. That doesn’t make the loss any less frustrating, but hey, they play one again today — during the day, even, so we hardly have to wait until they have their next chance at a W.

• Coco Crisp and Scott Sizemore went nuts in this one, combining to go 8 for 8 with a walk, a double, and two homers. Crisp had both homers, tagging CC for a solo homer in the first and then getting Soriano for the decisive three-run shot in the 10th. Any time you have two players hit like that, especially when they’re just one batter apart in the order, you’re probably going to have a big day on offense.
• Nick Swisher has been demolishing baseballs lately. He homered twice in the game after hitting a three-run shot yesterday and barely missing a walk-off shot. He’s been one of the few run producers in the series.
• How does the team get 11 hits and draw two walks, yet score only three runs? They went 2 for 10 with runners in scoring position, making them 3 for 23 in the series. Again, that’ll happen from time to time. At least this current slump comes when the Yankees already have a large lead on a playoff spot.
• CC Sabathia looked shaky at times, but still pitched very well through seven, allowing just one run. In the seventh he ran into some trouble, but, since it was CC, Girardi let him try to pitch out of it. That backfired, and the A’s tied the game and then eventually took the lead when David Robertson entered the game. It’s tough to assign any blame there. CC was under 100 pitches and, again, had pitched generally well. Sometimes baseball’ll do that to ya.
• As for Soriano, again, that’s going to happen from time to time. He’s pitched exceptionally well since coming off the DL. It’s agitating, yes, but that’s about it.
• Mark Teixeira was again all or nothing, going 1 for 5 with a long home run into the right field bleachers. It tied the game, so go Mark. Of course, he also hit a humpback liner that turned into a double play with a man on second in the first inning.

Again, they’ll be back on the field at 1 p.m., so at least this one gets put behind them, and us, pretty quickly. Phil Hughes gets the ball.