Yankees Took Care of Business Against Awful A's

When a bad team comes up on the schedule, you have to take advantage and the Yankees did by sweeping the A’s. Hope you enjoy a newsletter that, for once, isn’t one long bitch session from your author. And I hope you are all reading and enjoying Hardball Hyperbole each Wednesday. If you’ve missed any, just go to the website: https://salmaiorana.beehiiv.com.

This was an encouraging start to the week for the Yankees. Not from the standpoint that they swept the A’s, far and away the worst team in baseball and one that might give the 120-loss expansion 1962 Mets a run for their money. Hell, I played on some softball teams back in the day that would have had a chance to beat these A’s. OK, maybe not, but you get the point.

No, I mean from the standpoint that the Yankees knew there was blood in the water in these three games against a clearly inferior opponent, knew that nothing less than a sweep would be acceptable, and they answered that challenge with three blowouts which gives them their first three-game winning streak of the season.

After the gut-wrenching loss in the finale against the Rays last Sunday, the A’s could not have slinked into the Bronx at a better time, a lamb to the slaughter. The Yankees needed someone to beat up on and the now 8-30 A’s fit the bill.

Across the three games the Yankees scored 28 runs on 29 hits and 12 walks, and they slugged nine home runs, their highest total for any three-game segment this year.

They also won two of these games with Clarke Schmidt and Jhony Brito drawing starts, which isn’t exactly the reincarnation of David Cone and Andy Pettitte from the World Series years.

All of which was great. But now it’s back to reality as the Rays come in to Yankee Stadium for a four-game set starting Thursday, and on Monday the Yankees go up to Toronto for four games.

I’m not saying anything is going to be decided in the middle of May, but these eight games are a massive test and the Yankees need to be on the plus side of it when it’s over because after a brief reprieve with three games in Cincinnati next weekend, another gantlet begins. They have a six-game homestand against the Orioles and Padres, then a six-game road trip to play the Mariners and Dodgers. It’s a pretty brutal stretch of the schedule, which is why banking these three gimmes against the awful A’s was so important.

➤ Aaron Judge returned to action Tuesday for the first time since suffering his hip injury on April 27. To clear a roster spot, Oswald Peraza went on the injured list because of his ankle problem. Judge looked fine against the A’s minor league pitching staff, 3-for-7 with two walks and two RBI.

➤ Aaron Hicks left Tuesday’s game with a hip problem. He finally showed a pulse in the last few games with a double Sunday in Tampa and a home run Monday, the first two extra-base hits of his season. And then he gets hurt, which is the story of his career. Aaron Boone said he was OK Wednesday and could have played. Hey, let’s not rush it fellas. How about you give him five months to recover, that’ll work for all of us.

➤ Anthony Volpe has been scuffling for about a week at the plate, and despite his grand slam Wednesday, it might be worth thinking about dropping him back down to No. 9 in the order and inserting red-hot Harrison Bader into the leadoff spot. Bader is hitting .429 with a 1.341 OPS, two triples, three homers and 11 RBI in his first eight games. “He’s a sparkplug,” Judge said. Or, if you want to leave Bader in an RBI spot, put DJ LeMahieu at the top. He’s on an eight-game hitting streak, 11-for-31 with two homers in seven RBI. Either way, both are swinging it pretty well. Volpe is 4-for-32 in his last seven games.

➤ Speaking of swinging it well, Gleyber Torres has been rolling lately, a six-game hitting streak during which he’s 9-for-26 with two homers and seven RBI. He either hot or he’s not.

➤ In their first 38 games the Yankees have managed at least 10 hits just six times, but three have come in the last four days - Sunday in Tampa and then Tuesday and Wednesday in this series.

➤ Luis Severino finally made a rehab start, doing so at Triple-A Scranton Wednesday. He went 3.1 innings and gave up two hits including a solo homer, walked one and struck out three on 49 pitches. And now we wait to see how he feels Thursday morning.

➤ How about Gary Sanchez getting yet another chance? The Mets signed him and sent him to Triple-A Syracuse. I’m not expecting a career renaissance.

Here are my observations on the three games against the A’s.

May 8: Yankees 7, A’s 2

➤ We finally found a team that Hicks and Oswaldo Cabrera can hit against. After four fruitless innings against former Yankee lefty J.P. Sears, the bats finally woke up when Bader led off the fifth with a triple and Cabrera hit a fly ball to left that just snuck over the wall for a two-run homer. And then Hicks catapulted his season average up to .154 when he crushed a two-run homer to right in the seventh to cap the victory.

➤ In between there was a three-spot in the sixth as Torres hit a solo shot and LeMahieu a two-run bomb. All seven runs courtesy of four home runs was pretty much on brand.

➤ Starting to worry a little about Nestor Cortes. He wasn’t very good, again. Yes, he pitched five scoreless innings, but he was dealing with traffic. And then in the sixth he just lost it, loading the bases on two singles and a walk. Two of those runs ended up scoring against Ron Marinaccio which briefly tied the score. It could have been worse, but Oakland’s Nick Allen killed the rally by grounding into an inning-ending double play.

➤ Marinaccio had a poor outing which has been rare. When the first two guys reached against him in the seventh - meaning four of the six batters he faced got on via two singles, two walks - Boone pulled him after 30 pitches. Ian Hamilton and little-used Nick Ramirez calmed things down and closed out the game.

BOX SCORE

May 9: Yankees 10, A’s 5

➤ Clarke Schmidt is one of the nicest professional athletes on the planet, and I know this because I interviewed him last year in Rochester. That’s why I really hope he gets it figured out and becomes a reliable contributor for the Yankees. This game was a step forward, sort of. Remember, it was against the A’s, but he pitched a career-high six innings and gave up only two runs on five hits and two walks across 93 pitches. There were some shaky moments in the second and third, but after he gave up a home run to Jordan Diaz in the fourth, he cruised from then on. Diaz was a thorn in the Yankees side as the rookie hit three home runs, one each off Schmidt, Albert Abreu and Greg Weissert.

➤ Judge went 0-for-3 in his first game back but did drive in two runs. Bader had another excellent night, 3-for-4, including one of the three straight RBI singles the Yankees had during a five-run third inning. That eruption was helped along by the lousy A’s as third baseman Jace Peterson booted a ground ball by Judge that might have been an inning-ending double play. Instead, a run scored and the Yankees tacked on four thereafter. Hey, you gotta take advantage of breaks like that and the Yankees did.

➤ The Yankees keep telling us Weissert is really good, but he hasn’t been. He’s made five appearances and in his 5.1 innings, 13 of the 27 batters he has faced have reached base and his ERA is 5.06 while his WHIP is a gruesome 2.250. He has that wipeout slider, but he has no command of it. Boone was hoping he could handle the final two innings with a 9-3 lead, but he gave up a two-run homer to Diaz in the eighth and then allowed the first two men to reach in the ninth so Boone went to Clay Holmes to finish it, something he certainly didn’t want to do in a blowout. Holmes walked a guy, but he also struck out three.

BOX SCORE

May 10: Yankees 11, A’s 3

➤ Man, we’ll sure miss the A’s, won’t we? This team is a travesty, a blight on the sport. I feel bad for manager Mark Kotsay having to go through this with an owner who is more concerned about moving the team to Las Vegas than paying for actual major league players. Then again, Kotsay knew what he was signing up for and he’s being made a hell of a lot more money than any of us to stand in the dugout and growl.

➤ Brito had the one terrible start against the Twins when he gave up seven runs in the first inning on April 13, and then he was lousy against the Twins a couple weeks later. He’s had a couple decent ones mixed in, and the rest were like this one which is to say pretty uninspiring. He lasted only 4.1 innings against a bad team and was dealing with baserunners throughout as he gave up five hits and two walks. He only allowed two runs - on back-to-back homers in the second - because he worked into and out of trouble in the first and third.

➤ When Brito got into another jam in the fifth, Boone called on Jimmy Cordero with one out and men on second and third, and Cordero saved further damage to Brito’s ERA (it’s now 5.81) by getting the final two outs. Cordero handled the sixth, and then in came former hot prospect turned career minor leaguer Deivi Garcia.

➤ Garcia hadn’t pitched in an MLB game in two years, but he was called up Tuesday night after Weissert rode the shuttle back to Scranton. And though Garcia gave up a homer to J.J. Bleday, he threw 55 pitches to cover the final three innings which was great for the bullpen because now the Yankees are rested heading into the Tampa series. And because of those 55 pitches, he was immediately sent back to Scranton because he won’t be of any use for the next several days. Man, tough business this baseball. No word on who the Yankees will call up.

➤ All the offensive damage came in two innings, a four-run first keyed by Bader’s three-run homer, and then a seven-run fifth when 11 men came to the plate. Judge had two hits in the inning, LeMahieu had a two-run homer that made it 7-2, and Volpe capped it with his grand slam. It’s pretty funny, Derek Jeter hit one grand slam in his 2,747-game career; Volpe hit one in his 38th game. So far this year Volpe has batted four times with the bases loaded and he’s 3-for-3 with a walk and seven RBI.

BOX SCORE

 ➤ May 9, 1999: Nearly two decades before the Rays introduced us to the concept of “the opener,” a reliever starting a game and pitching an inning or two, Mike Stanton did that very thing on this day for the Yankees.

However, this decision, made by Don Zimmer who was filling in for Joe Torre while he was recovering from prostate cancer surgery, had nothing to do with analytics or strategy. It was done out of necessity because as the Yankees wrapped up a series with Seattle, they did not have a starting pitcher available, partially due to injuries to Roger Clemens and Ramiro Mendoza.

Rather than call up someone from the minors, Zimmer and pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre thought outside the box and had Stanton, their lefty relief specialist, start the game and go as long as he could, backed up by middle reliever Jason Grimsley. Stanton went way beyond any Rays opener as he pitched four innings allowing no runs on two hits and a walk, then Grimsley threw the next four innings and gave up one run on one hit and two walks. By the time Mariano Rivera came on in a non-save situation in the ninth, the Yankees were comfortably ahead 6-1, and that’s how it ended.

By starting, Stanton qualified for a new MLB record for most relief appearances made before making a start, ending it at 552, far past the previous mark of 443 set by Gary Lavelle before he started a game for the Giants in 1981. The last time Stanton started a game had been 1990 with the Braves’ Double-A team in Greenville.

“The whole day was just stupid,” Stanton said with a laugh. “It was a day that was definitely out of the norm for me. But I had a good time and we won and that’s about it. The only weird thing was standing out there during the anthem. Usually when I’m ready, it’s time to play.”

As if the Yankees didn’t get enough of the Rays last weekend, now they get them four times this weekend starting Thursday night. But hey, the Rays will be coming to Yankee Stadium after dropping back-to-back games in Baltimore and losing their third series of the season, while New York is on a three-game winning streak.

“I like where we’re at, like that we’re coming in with an edge,” Boone said. “I felt that this morning, like there was an energy, a quick turnaround game (from Tuesday night) and it’s like, ‘We gotta go. We gotta keep going.’ And I feel like we’ve done a good job of that over the last 10 days, really.”

The Orioles are good and they proved it by beating the Rays 4-2 on Tuesday and 2-1 on Wednesday after they lost the opener 3-0 on Monday. All three games were taut affairs and while Tampa’s outstanding pitching staff was great, Baltimore’s underrated pitching staff was even better. It held the best offense in MLB to six runs on 21 hits across the three games. Baltimore is just 4.5 games behind the Rays now, while the Yankees gained two games and are eight back heading into this series.

All four games are on YES and the pitching matchups are as follows: Thursday, 7:05 p.m., Domingo German (4.35 ERA) meets Drew Rasmussen (3.11); Friday at 7:05 it’s Gerrit Cole (2.09) against to be determined, which could mean a Rays opener; Saturday at 1:05 it’s Nestor Cortes (4.74) against Rays ace Shane McClanahan (1.76); and Sunday at 1:35 it’s Clarke Schmidt (5.35) against Zach Eflin (2.91).