The Yankees took down the A’s 12-2 in dominant fashion to win the series

Sacramento—The Yankees' bats exploded in the finale of this three-game set as they took down the A’s 12-2 to win the series. Ryan Yarbrough got the start for the Yankees, and former Yankee Luis Severino took the mound for the A’s.

In the top of the first inning, Ben Rice, Aaron Judge, and Cody Bellinger went down in order against former Yankee Luis Severino.

Yarbrough worked a 1-2-3 eight-pitch bottom of the second inning. 

Paul Goldschmidt led off the top of the second inning with a double in the left-center gap, then quickly moved up to third base on a wild pitch. Jasson Dominguez followed that up with a walk, and the next batter, Anthony Volpe, came through with an RBI single to make it 1-0 Yankees. Then Austin Wells deposited a single up the middle to load the bases with nobody out, and then Oswaldo Cabrera worked a bases-loaded walk to make it a 2-0 game. 

The next batter, Yorbit Vivias, picked up an RBI groundout to make it a 3-0 game. Then Ben Rice was hit by a pitch to reload the bases. The next batter, the captain Judge, came through with a two-run single to make it a 5-0 game and cap off a five-run second inning in which the Yankees sent 10 men to the plate. 

“It makes for a good day, especially on a day like today when we have Yarbrough go out there and give you five quality innings, which was impressive,” Judge said about everyone in the lineup contributing. “Just the whole lineup feeding off each other, especially seeing a guy like Severino, who we have a lot of history with, we know him well. But it was all around just a great performance by the guys.” 

Dominguez led things off with a single to right field in the top of the third inning. A couple of batters later, Cabrera drove in the speedy Dominguez with a two-out RBI double to make it a 6-0 Yankees lead.

In the top of the fourth inning, Judge picked up a hustle double in the left-center gap to put his average back above 400 at .401. 

In the top of the fifth inning, the Yankees broke it wide open with Ben Rice's first career grand slam to make it a 10-1 game. A couple batters later, Goldy tacked on another run with an RBI double off the wall in left field to make it an 11-1 Yankees lead. 

“Just being particular with what I was looking for there,” Rice said.“Looking for something up that I can drive. fortunately, I got in a good hitters count there 3-1, and I was able to put a good swing on it.”

JJ Bleday cut into the Yankees' lead with a solo home run in the bottom of the fifth inning to make it an 11-2 game. A beautiful diving play from Judge in right field helped avoid any further damage. 

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Yerrey De Los Santos replaced Yarbrough on the mound and worked a 1-2-3 inning. 

Ryan Yarbrough’s final line: five innings pitched, six hits allowed, two earned runs, one walk, and two strikeouts on 67 pitches. Yarbrough did an excellent job in his second start of the season, getting through five innings on a limited pitch count.

“It was just keeping guys off balance; a lot of soft contact,” Yarbrough said on what made him successful today. “Even like the hits besides the home run, I felt good about the pitches and things like that. So it was good just to keep guys off balance and in between certain things and make pitches. It was good that way, when we’re scoring like that, you want to get the guys back up there as soon as possible.” 

The Yankees made it a 10-run game thanks to another RBI double from Goldy in the top of the seventh inning to make it a 12-2 game. 

De Los Santos remained in the game for the bottom of the seventh and the eighth and worked two more scoreless innings. 

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Tyler Matzek replaced De Los Santos on the mound and picked up the final three outs of the ballgame to end this one 12-2 and give the Yankees the series win over the A’s. 

The Yankees will head to Seattle to continue the West Coast trip as they start a new series against the Mariners tomorrow. Emmerson Hancock will get the start for the Mariners, and it will most likely be Clarke Schmidt for the Yankees, but it is still TBD. The first pitch will be at 9:40 p.m. ET on the YES Network.

My thoughts on the game: Judge is unbelievable as he had a four-hit day to put his average up to .409 and a 1.273 OPS. Goldy Knocks also had a three-hit day as he is up to a .349 average and a .898 OPS. Yarbrough also put together a solid start, plus De Los Santos and Marzek combined for four shutout innings out of the bullpen to keep the rest of the bullpen fresh for Seattle. Great series win, now hopefully the Yankees can keep it going in Seattle.