Cold night, colder bats: Yankees fall 3-2 to A’s
- Davis Cornell
- 12 hours ago
- 4 min read
Another freezing cold night in the Bronx as the A’s took down the Yankees 3-2 to even the series. Will Warren got the start and faced off against former Yankees Luis Severino.
Warren navigated around a one-out single in the first inning and recorded a pair of strikeouts in the process.
Sevy ran into trouble right away in the bottom half of the frame. Trent Grisham and Aaron Judge got things started with back-to-back singles. Cody Bellinger followed with an RBI bloop single to drive in Grisham and give the Yankees a 1-0 advantage.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. worked a two-out walk to load the bases, J.C. Escarra followed with a walk of his own to bring Judge across to score, extending the Yankees' lead to 2-0. The hero from last night's game, Amed Rosario, came up with a chance to break the game wide open but went down on strikes.
In the top of the third inning, Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake was ejected from the ballgame for arguing balls and strikes.
Warren surrendered three straight singles in the fourth, including an RBI knock to Jeff McNeil to cut the Yankees' lead to 2-1. Warren then walked the No. 9 hitter to load the bases for the reigning AL Rookie of the Year, Nick Kurtz, with the bases loaded. Warren threw a wild pitch in the dirt, allowing the tying run to score.
Two runners reached in the top of the fifth on an error from Ben Rice and a walk from Warren, with two outs and two on. Tim Hill took over and picked up a first-pitch groundout, ending the frame.
Final line for Warren: 4.2 innings pitched, five hits allowed, two earned runs, three walks, and five strikeouts on 85 pitches. Warren threw the fastball 39% of the time, the sweeper 29%, the sinker 24%, the curveball 5%, and the changeup 4%. Warren topped out at 95.6 mph and averaged 93 on the heater, with six swings and misses.
“Our job as a starter is to go five innings or deeper into the game,” Warren said. “Tonight, I was a little short of that. It adds up because the bullpen's got to get used and we need them for three-game sets and stuff.”
Hill remained in the game for the sixth and worked a scoreless frame with some help from a web gem diving play from Jazz.
In the top of the seventh, Camilo Doval replaced Hill on the mound and navigated around an E5 from Rosario to put together a scoreless outing with a strikeout in the process.
Grisham and Judge both drew two-out walks in the bottom half of the seventh, but Belli punched out swinging to strand both runners and slammed his bat in frustration.
“Felt like I was seeing the ball well,” Belli said. “He did a good job of pitching and ultimately, I tried to foul that pitch off. I felt like it was a good pitch. It was a good pitch. He threw it well and it missed my barrel. Obviously, late in the game, you want to come through there, and I just wasn't able to do it.”
Brent Headrick came in relief for Doval in the eighth inning and worked around a two-out double to put together a scoreless frame.
Ben Rice, Giancarlo Stanton and Jazz went three up three down in the bottom half of the inning.
Yankees closer David Bednar got the call for the ninth to face the top of the A’s lineup and gave up a leadoff single to Kurtz and a double to Shea Langeliers to put two runners in scoring position with no outs. Brent Rooker gave the A’s their first lead of the night on a sac fly, making it a 3-2 ballgame.
In the bottom of the ninth, Escarra, Rosario and Ryan McMahon were retired in order to give the A’s a 3-2 win and set up a rubber match tomorrow. I’m not sure why Aaron Boone decided not to pinch hit Austin Wells or Paul Goldschmidt.
"Just felt good with the guys there. Kuhnel, I liked our lefties against him. I considered him for Rosie there, but ultimately decided not to," Boone said.
The series finale will be tomorrow with Ryan Weathers on the mound, facing off against Jeffrey Springs. The first pitch is scheduled for 1:35 ET on the YES Network.
My thoughts on the game: Decent start from Warren tonight, just wasn't able to go deep into the game and walked too many hitters. The bullpen was solid outside of Bednar, who I trust more than anyone else in the Yankees bullpen, so not a huge deal. But Bednar has given up way too many hits to start the season with over a .300 opponents' batting average. Headrick was great; he continues to impress me, and clearly, he is impressing the Yankees, getting the eighth inning. Doval had a nice bounce-back outing. We need him to be good, or else the bullpen could be in trouble, same with Bednar. McMahon got the start at shortstop, his first time starting there since 2020, and he looked solid there, but he continues to be atrocious offensively, hitting .077 with a .350 OPS and robbing the Yankees of $16 million a year. The whole offense just hasn't gotten going yet; they didn't have a hit after the fourth inning tonight and only had four hits. On to tomorrow, hopefully to win the series. That game gave me a headache.
“Mac's a good major league hitter. It's 10 games in, okay? He's scuffling right now, but the reality is, the last three games, he's been on base four times too, with walks and hits and big at-bats,” Boone said of McMahon. “We want him to improve even who he's been obviously in his career, and he's off to a slow start right now, but a number of our guys are, as well. He'll get it rolling and trust that he will, especially against some of these good right-handed matchups.”
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