The Yankees defeated the Athletics 10-4 in the series finale on Thursday afternoon at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.
Here are some takeaways…
– Clarke Schmidt made his 17th start of the season for the Yankees this afternoon and he immediately got off to a worse start than Domingo German had on Wednesday night.
Tony Kemp put any hopes of back-to-back perfect games to bed early with a leadoff single. He stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error, then came in to score the first run of the game on a JJ Bleday sacrifice fly.
The A’s were all over Schmidt in the first inning, putting together three hits, but he was able to work out of the inning allowing just the one run.
– Isiah Kiner-Falefa quickly picked Schmidt up, as he launched a solo shot to deep left center in the top of the second, evening things at one. Esteury Ruiz made a great attempt to try to rob the homer, but the ball took his glove off his hand and over the wall.
– Schmidt responded by pitching around a leadoff walk in the bottom half of the inning. He struggled to find the strike zone again in the third and this time around the A’s made him pay.
After Schmidt issued back-to-back walks to lead off the inning, a Seth Brown RBI single and Carlos Perez sacrifice fly put Oakland back in front 3-1.
The Yankee offense responded back again, as Harrison Bader doubled and scored two batters later on an IKF sac fly. Schmidt then began to settle in nicely, as he was able to put together a pair of scoreless innings.
– The Yankees offense again rewarded him, breaking things open in the sixth. Josh Donaldson got the party started with a monstrous two-run homer to deep left-center. Gleyber Torres, Giancarlo Stanton, and Bader all picked up run-scoring hits. IKF capped off the eight-run inning with his third RBI of the afternoon.
– Schmidt allowed a one-out hit in the bottom of the sixth and his day came to an end, Ron Marinaccio entered in his place and retired the next two batters easily.
After a bit of a rocky start, Schmidt was able to settle down nicely. He allowed three runs on five hits while walking three and striking out three across 5.1 innings of work.
– In his return from the injured list, Ian Hamilton tossed a 1-2-3 bottom of the seventh. Nick Ramirez allowed a run in the eighth but that was it, as the Yanks held on to secure the series win.
– After dropping the series opener 2-1, the New York offense took care of business against the relatively weak Oakland pitching staff, racking up 21 runs on 24 hits over the final two games.
Highlights
What’s next
The Yankees continue their roadtrip as they head to Busch Stadium to take on the struggling St. Louis Cardinals in a three-game weekend series starting on Friday at 8:15 pm
Luis Severino (1-2, 5.25 ERA) takes the mound for New York against 23-year-old left-hander Matthew Liberatore (1-5, 5.60 ERA).