A’s swept by Yankees in blowout

Another day, another stinker.

The New York Yankees delivered the Oakland A’s another decisive loss in Wednesday morning’s blowout. Nothing went well for the A’s as the offense couldn’t get much going, the starting pitching was lackluster, and the bullpen threw hot garbage as it typically does.

Starting with the starter, Kyle Muller had a bit of tough luck in the 1st as an umpire review for fan interference did not go his way. A Harrison Bader drive to right field most likely would’ve been caught by a leaping JJ Bleday at the wall had a Yankees fan not stuck his glove out and grabbed the ball a couple feet above the right fielder’s glove.

I guess the decision to not rule it as fan interference was a result of it not being conclusive whether the fan’s glove was past the wall and into the field or not. Whatever’s over the wall is fair game for spectators to grab. Shrug.

You would think we’d have a side angle along the wall to see this in 2023, but no, cameras inside the bases are more of a priority. Unfortunately for Muller and the A’s, that homer alone scored 3 runs, adding to the sacrifice fly that brought in Aaron Judge earlier in the inning, making it a 4-0 game.

The A’s tried to get back into the action with back-to-back solo shots from the increasingly beloved Carlos Perez and birthweek boy Jace Peterson that cut the A’s deficit in half.

Muller also gutted up and settled down nicely after the homerun call, striking out 6 batters and only allowing 3 baserunners over the next 3.1 innings. But he began unravelling once again to start the 5th, giving up back-to-back hits to Judge and Anthony Rizzo, allowing the Yankees to go up 5-2.

Mark Kotsay decided to go to the backend of the bullpen with Rico Garcia. But rather than limiting the damage, the journeyman reliever compounded it, giving up 2 walks and 4 more hits. One of those was an immediate 2-run shot from DJ Lemahieu. Another was a 2-out grand slam from rookie shortstop Anthony Volpe. Needing just one more out, Kotsay went back to the bullpen and brought in Shintaro Fujinami, who struck out Rizzo to end the inning. The total damage for the 5th: 6 hits, 2 walks, 2 homers, and 7 runs. 11-2, Yankees.

On the bright side, Fuji had one of his cleaner outings of the season, pitching 2.1 scoreless innings to prevent an even more embarrassing blowout, though it’s not like we’re not used to those by now. His length also saved the team from having to waste half of the bullpen as it usually does in these types of games.

The aforementioned Bleday, whose New York moment was robbed earlier in the game, stole his moment back with a solo homer in the top of the 7th, after already hitting a double earlier in the game. He’s now up to a whopping .393/.433/.821 batting line in his first 28 plate appearances with 3 homeruns. Even Brent Rooker is feeling a little jealous.

Richard Lovelady closed the game out with 2-strikeout, scoreless inning and the A’s ended up losing the game to the Yankees 11-3, securing their 5th sweep of the year.

The A’s will look to rebound with an upcoming 4-game series against the Texas Rangers that starts tomorrow.