Yankees drop their sixth straight and get swept by the A’s with a 4-3 loss

Source: FanGraphs

The Yankees lost six (6) games in a row to cap off this miserable West Coast trip. Getting swept by the Athletics in a four-game series is a cherry on the top. Today, they drew first blood by taking a 2-0 lead, but the A’s scored four off Luis Cessa in the third and the Yankees simply could not rally. Yuck. It is easily the lowest point of the 2017 Yankees season so far. Let’s just get it out of the way with a recap done in bullet-point style.

• Getting ahead: The Yankees got the first run of the game when Matt Holliday drilled a solo homer to lead off the top of the second. He got a fastball upstairs from Jharel Cotton and took it pretty, pretty far (433 feet) into the center field seats. They added another in the top of the third. Brett Gardner doubled to deep right to start the frame and Aaron Judge hit a soft single off the end of his bat to drive him in. 2-0 Yankees. Maybe this game was going to be different than the previous five! And, of course, the bottom of the third came.
• Getting all of them out of the way: The Yankees gave the lead back and then more (surprise, surprise). Cessa got into a trouble after allowing a single to Josh Phegley and a double to Matt Joyce, making it runners on second and third with one out. Chad Pinder hit a double to right to drive both of them in and the Yankees lead was gone. It was an annoying sequence of pitches – Cessa kept throwing towards the outside corner and Pinder fouled a bunch off. He got a hold of a slider that didn’t break sharply and tied the game up. Two batters later, Khris Davis went deep on a fastball upstairs to make it 4-2 Athletics. I, for one, am shocked that a guy with a 4.15 ERA/4.41 FIP in the AAA this season couldn’t rescue the Yankees out of the losing streak. Anyways, that was all the Athletics needed today.
• The attempts to rally: The Yankees got one back right after. Leading off the fourth, Didi Gregorius pulled one just inside the foul pole to make it 4-3 A’s. From the fifth to the eighth innings, however, Yankees only managed two baserunners (Gardner single in the fifth and Judge HBP in the eighth) and, of course, came up with zilch. They had a chance to tie it up in the ninth inning. With one out against Sean Doolittle, Gregorius hit a grounder to short that seemed like an easy out, but the shortstop Chad Pinder badly missed his throw and the ball went into the Yankee dugout. As a result, Didi advanced to second. However, Chase Headley followed it up with a strikeout and Chris Carter popped out to end the game rather swiftly.
• Leftovers: After Cessa, three bullpen arms went scoreless overall to keep it a one-run game. Chad Green continues to make his case to stay in the ML roster long-term by throwing two scoreless innings while striking out two. Tyler Clippard followed it up with a scoreless one in the seventh. Aroldis Chapman made his comeback in the eighth, hitting 100 mph a several times while pitching an easy 8-pitch 1-2-3 inning. The Yankees got one of the big bullpen arms back, so they got that going for them.

Here’s today’s box score, updated standings and WPA graph. The Yankees are back in Bronx on Tuesday against the LA Angels to start a six-game homestand. Thank God that trip is over now. Hope the Astros win again tonight to keep the Yankees in the first place in the AL East. Also, hope you all have a great Father’s Day!