Game #127: A’s Take The Bite Out of New York

The Yankees came into this mid-week series with the best record in baseball since the All-Star break and the best record in August. The A’s entered the series fresh off taking three of four from the AL West leading Astros and winners of 15 of the last 19 games at the Oakland Coliseum. Something had to give in this heavyweight fight and luckily for the A’s the Yankees buckled again tonight as the A’s took their second game in a row against the boys in pinstripes, winning 6-4.

Game Thread #1
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“Krush” Davis Shows Up
Khris Davis hadn’t homered since July. Last night he struck out four times and looked lost at the plate in the midst of a 0 for 17 streak. Give credit to Bob Melvin for keeping him in the line-up tonight as Davis came up with a runner on board and the A’s down by an early run and did this:

The two run blast put the A’s up 2-1, a lead they wouldn’t relinquish the rest of the evening. Marcus Semien followed up Davis’ home run in the third inning with a two run shot of his own. The homer was Semien’s 22nd round tripper of the season.

Mark “Mr. Sixth Man”Canha
Canha has played all over the place in 2019, first base, left field, right field and since Ramon Laureano’s IL stint, center. All Canha has done is play excellent defense wherever the A’s have placed him and produced clutch at-bats. Tonight’s fifth inning infield RBI single won’t be remembered by many but it is just another example of how valuable Canha has been to this team. After loading the bases with nobody out, the A’s heart of the order in Chapman and Olson failed to score a run, leaving Canha up with the bags full and two outs...Canha managed to get the run home to provide a much needed insurance run on an evening where you knew the Yankees offense would at wake up at some point.

Fiers Keeps on Blazing
Mike Fiers has been on quite the roll since his May no-hitter against the Reds. He came into tonight 9-0 since then and thru five innings tonight against one of the best hitting teams in baseball, Fiers kept the New York bats quiet. In the sixth inning he ran into trouble with one out, allowing two singles and a walk to end his evening. A sac fly RBI off the bat of Yankees centerfielder, Mike Tauchman plated a run, but Yusmiero Petit limited the damage from there to make the score 5-2 after six innings of play. Fiers moves to 12-3 with the victory tonight, tops on the team.

Piscotty Adds a Blast of His Own
Stephen Piscotty is still recovering from the sprained knee that sidelined him for a few weeks earlier this summer and his recent twisted ankle over the weekend. There are some concerns that his leg issues may limit his power, but tonight he put those concerns at bay with this opposite field swing:

A’s Bullpen Bends But Doesn’t Break
Bamboo is known for its ability to bend in the wind but rarely break. The A’s bullpen resembled a bamboo forest tonight. After Petit got the A’s out of the top of the sixth inning, he struggled in the seventh, allowing a solo home run to Mike “Who?” Ford and then a two out single to Gary Sanchez. BoMel would make another call to the bullpen for Blake Treinen. Treinen promptly game up back to back hits to score another run for the Yankees and cut the A’s lead to 6-4. Credit Treinen with getting out his own jam by inducing a ground ball out from the ever dangerous Gleyber Torres to end the seventh inning rally. In the 8th inning, AJ Puk made his long awaited Oakland debut. The 6’7 hurler may have been a bit too amped up as he walked the first hitter he faced (albeit throwing 99 mph fastballs). Puk’s debut was saved by this incredible Jurickson Profar catch:

Hendriks - A’s MVP?
It is hard to imagine where the A’s would be without Liam Hendriks in 2019. The Aussie right-hander who was DFA’d by the club last summer only to have every other MLB team pass on him, came into tonight’s game in a critical spot. The Yankees has put runners on 1st and 3rd with only out out and All-Star second basemen, DJ LeMahieu up to bat. With the A’s clinging to a two run lead, Hendriks pumped high octane fastballs past LeMahieu before throwing a risky yet filthy slider past him for the strikeout and out number two. Relief was only temporary however, as the next Yankee hitter was Aaron Judge, the same guy who deposited a fastball last night over 470 feet to deep left center field. Hendriks once again shined, striking out Judge on a hard slider as well. Here is what it looked like:

Ninth Inning - 1,2,3
In the ninth inning, Hendriks came back out and retired the Yankees in order (strikeout, flyout, groundout) to close out the game and earn his 15th save of the season. An unbelievable performance by Hendriks in a season of unbelievable performances!

Sweep Tomorrow!
The A’s will go for the sweep tomorrow night at 6:37pm west coast time as Tanner Roark (7-8, 4.01 ERA) takes the mound for the A’s against the Yankees Masahiro Tanaka (9-6, 4.56 ERA)

Bob Melvin - The Game’s Top Manager
BoMel takes some hits every once in awhile from all of us over his bullpen moves, but there is no denying his talent as a big league manager. Melvin is one of the game’s best skippers and tonight he reached a pretty cool milestone, 1200 big league wins...Way to go Bob!