photo from @Athletics
By Jessica Kwong
NEW YORK — The Oakland Athletics lost to the New York Yankees for the first time this season on Saturday afternoon, 4-3 in 11 innings, after DJ LeMahieu hit a home run on Lou Trivino’s first pitch in the 11th inning.
Trevino allowed no runs in two innings before throwing a fastball that LeMahieu hit right field out of the ballpark, his second walk-off hit of the season.
A’s manager Bob Melvin said he has seen signs of Trivino and pitcher Blake Treinen, who allowed no runs in the ninth inning, “pitching better recently” and “hopefully it’s a trend.”
The Yankees gained momentum in the first inning when Gary Sanchez hit a home run on a fly ball to left field for a 1-0 lead.
Oakland responded in the fourth inning when Matt Olson hit a homer on a fly ball to right center field, and Matt Chapman scored, putting the A’s up 2-1. But in the fifth inning, Sanchez hit another home run on a fly ball to right center field to tie the game at 2-2.
The A’s took a 3-2 lead in the seventh inning when Chapman doubled on a line drive to left field, allowing Robbie Grossman to score. New York evened the score at 3-3 in the eight inning when Aaron Judge hit a home run off Joakim Soriaon on a fly ball to right field, and the game went into extra innings. All of New York’s runs were solo home runs.
“That was kind of the theme of the game today—solo shots,” A’s starting pitcher Homer Bailey said.
Oakland left 15 players on base and was 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. A’s manager Bob Melvin did not think (too bad).
“You leave 15 on, it comes back to bite you at some time,” Melvin said. “But you know what, we came back and the lead and were one pitch away from going into the ninth inning with it and Chappie’s ball, unless you have a 10-foot outfielder in right field, it probably goes out.”
Melvin concluded “it’s a game of inches today,” and, “sometimes they don’t come through, most times here recently, they do.”
A’s batter Mark Canha said the bullpen gave them opportunities and “we just couldn’t do it.”
“We just have to have some better at-bats tomorrow because I felt like we were just bon the cusp of breaking it open a few times,” Canha said. “We just needed that one hit and it didn’t work out unfortunately.”
The A’s beat the Yankees 3-0 in Oakland and won Friday night at Yankee Stadium. The A’s (78-57) and Yankees (89-48) play the last game of the series, tied at 1-1, Sunday with first pitch at 1:05 p.m. ET.
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