Source: FanGraphs
It wasn’t the most well-played game, but a win is a win is a win. At this point style points do not matter. The Yankees beat the Athletics 4-1 in Thursday’s series opener out in Oakland. West Coast night games get bullet point recaps, so let’s get to it:
- Nasty Nova: Boy has Ivan Nova given the Yankees a big shot in the arm. His third start was another dandy: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3 K. The only run came on a Josh Reddick solo homer. Hanging curveball. It happens. Nova got 12 of his 15 non-strikeout outs on the ground and he threw only 62 pitches too. 62! Like Nathan Eovaldi on Wednesday, Joe Girardi took six strong innings from his starter, patted him on the bottom, and went to his top relievers. Well done, Ivan.
- Four Hits, One Run: Thanks to a pair of base-running mistakes, the Yankees scored only one run on four hits in the sixth inning. Chase Headley singled, then got picked off first. Blah. Then Dustin Ackley singled. Then Didi Gregorius singled. Ackley went first-to-third on Didi’s single and made it safely, but Gregorius tried to advance to second on the play and was thrown out. Sigh. Thankfully Aaron Hicks picked up the run with a two-out double into the corner to make it 2-1 Yankees. The Yankees tried like hell to not score, but the A’s wouldn’t let them.
- Bullpen Time: Dellin Betances, who has appeared in exactly half the team’s 40 games, allowed a leadoff single before striking out two and getting a classic Oakland Coliseum foul pop-up in a scoreless seventh. Andrew Miller struck out one in a perfect eighth, then Aroldis Chapman pitched around a single in the ninth. Girardi doesn’t like using his relievers three days in a row, so none of the big three figure to be available Friday. Maybe Eovaldi and Nova can toss an inning?
- WTFundamentals: More blunders! After the Yankees made a bunch of boneheaded plays in Arizona, Carlos Beltran kicked off the A’s series by losing track of the outs while on the bases. Beltran was on second with two outs when Brian McCann lifted a fly ball to right field that Reddick dropped. Beltran didn’t know there were two outs, so he tagged up and was unable to score on the play. Cost the Yankees a run. Brutal. The Yankees have played such sloppy baseball all season, and especially of late. Gotta clean it up.
- Leftovers: The Yankees scored their first run when Beltran doubled into the left field corner in the third inning. Brett Gardner chugged all the way around from first … they scored their third and fourth runs on Beltran’s two-run homer in the ninth, so he atoned for the whole not scoring on Reddick’s error thing … Gardner went 2-for-3 with two walks and a stolen base … Headley had two hits as well, and every starter reached base at least once except Starlin Castro. He went 0-for-4 with a strikeout … even with the hiccup against the Diamondbacks, the Yankees have won nine of their last 14 games.
Here are the box score, video highlights, and updated standings. Also make sure you check out our Bullpen Workload and Announcer Standings. The Yankees and A’s continue this four-game series Friday night. That’s a 9:35pm ET start. CC Sabathia will come off the DL to make that start. Sonny Gray will be on the bump for Oakland.
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