by Jerry Feitelberg

It was a hot and humid evening in the Big Apple Tuesday night as the A’s squared off against the New York Yankees. The A’s ace, Sonny Gray pitched for the first time since June 25th. Gray was a little rusty as he gave up two runs in the first inning. He settled down and allowed just one more run in his seven innings of work. Gray did not get a decision, but the A’s came back  from a 3-2 deficit to beat the vaunted Yankee bullpen to win 4-3 in ten innings. Nathan Eovaldi started for New York.  Eovaldi went five and 1/3rd innings and left the game with the Yankees leading 3-2.

The A’s scored a run in the top of the first. Josh Reddick, hitting with two out, singled to center to drive in Stephen Vogt with the first run of the game. The Yankees came back and took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the first. The A’s tied the game when Stephen Vogt singled to drive in Marcus Semien. The Yankees regained the lead in the bottom of the fourth when Yankee shortstop drove in Brian McCann to make it a 3-2 game in favor of New York.

The A’s tied the game in the top of the sixth inning. Yankee Manager lifted Eovaldi with one out in the sixth. Girardi did not want Eovaldi to pitch to Josh Reddick. He brought in lefty Chasen Shreve to face Reddick and Shreve did the job retiring Reddick. However, the next batter Billy Butler homered on the first pitch from Shreve to tie the game. It was Butler’s seventh home run of the year.

The game remained tied until the top of the tenth inning. A’s third baseman Brett Lawrie, who had struck out three times so far in the game, smoked a Dellin Betances’ hanging breaking ball into the left-field seats to put the A’s ahead. Closer Tyler Clippard walked two batters but came through by striking out Yankee slugger Mark Teixeira to end the game.

Game Notes- The pitching line for Sonny Gray was seven innings pitched, six hits, three runs and he struck out five. Drew Pomeranz received credit for the win and Tyler Clippard recorded his sixteenth save of the year. Dellin Betances took the loss for New York. The A’s are now 39-47 for the year and the Yankees fall to 44-39. The A’s have won four of the five game played between the teams so far this year. The extra-inning win was the first for the A’s since September 21, 2014.