By Kahlil Najar

OAKLAND – Sonny Gray pitched 8 innings, struck out five and only surrendered four hits as the A’s beat the Yankees 6 -2 for the second consecutive day. The Yankees are now 1-11 in their last 12 games at the Coliseum.

Sonny Gray  is now 3-2 with a 1.67 ERA in six starts in May after going 3-0 with a 1.98 ERA in five starts in April.

“Sonny’s just so special, and what he did tonight was very impressive and exactly what we needed to continue on this path,” said Stephen Vogt. “We’ve been playing such good baseball, and to have a start like that from your ace is huge.”

Offensively Billy Burns had his tenth multiple hit game of the season which is tops amongst American League Rookies. Brett Lawrie launched a deep two-run homer to left field in the bottom of the eighth to bring the A’s runs to six. It’s the first time he’s homered in back to back games since June 5-6, 2014. Josh Phegley  went 3-for-4 and recorded his first three-hit game for the first time since 2013.

“We’re getting leads now, we’re holding them, we’re getting better at-bats, we’re getting breakthrough hits, cleaner games defensively for the most part,” said manager Bob Melvin. “A lot of things that have been our Achilles heel, we’re starting to get better at.”

Another amazing thing the A’s did tonight was not commit one error.

“Even through the rough stretch we went through, we always were trying to be positive around here,” said Sonny Gray. “We knew we were a lot better team than the way we’ve been playing.”

The A’s have now won five of their last seven games and hope to continue the upward swing as they face the Yankees again tomorrow and send Jesse Hahn (2-4, 3.69) against Nathan Eovaldi (4-1, 4.27), game time 7:05 pm.