Yankees blank A’s 3-0 behind Warren’s grit and bullpen brilliance

New York—The Yankees have officially made it to the halfway point in the regular season and finished off the first half with a 3-0 shutout win over the A’s, finishing off the first 81 games with a 47-34 record. Will Warren got the starting nod for the Yankees, and Mitch Spence took the ball for the A’s. 

"I think we got the guys in here to accomplish the goal that we want to,” Warren said on the Yankees' first half. “I think when we play Yankee baseball, the way we're supposed to, there's not anybody that can beat us." Jazz Chisholm Jr. added, "I feel like we can be better, obviously. I feel like we're a better team than we've shown.”

In the top of the first inning, Warren walked three batters, as well as three strikeouts on 36 pitches to work a stressful scoreless inning. 

“Yeah, fell behind, allowed the free passes," Warren said. "But hammered down and was going to let them put the ball and play, let our defense play behind me, and was able to sneak out of it." 

Trent Grisham, Aaron Judge, and Cody Bellinger went down in order for the Yankees in the bottom of the first inning. 

Warren had a nice bounce-back 1-2-3 bottom of the second inning on just 11 pitches with two strikeouts to put his total up to five on the night. 

In the bottom of the second inning, Jazz stayed hot, launching his 12th home run of the season on the first pitch he saw of the night to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead. 

"Yeah, I definitely knew it was gone as soon as I hit it,” Jazz said. “It felt good. It was exactly what I was looking for."

Anthony Volpe led off the bottom of the third inning with a four-pitch walk. Volpe then moved up to second on a DJ LeMahieu groundout. Judge was then intentionally walked, Belli made the A’s pay for that by coming through with an RBI single right back up the middle to make it 2-0. Belli is now 6-for-15 on the season following a Judge intentional walk. 

“Understandable,” Belli said on Judge getting intentionally walked in front of him. “He's the best hitter on the planet, so for me it's just like any at-bat, just what’s my plan and how can I execute in this situation.”

"I don't know. It's a good hitter that has gotten some results," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said about Belli's success following a Judge intentional walk. "And I thought he put up a few really good at-bats tonight. All the way to the last one, where he lines the base hit off the lefty. I just think it's the product of a good hitter that's been around and been there and done that and doesn't get overwhelmed or overamped." 

Paul Goldschmidt reached base with one out in the bottom of the fourth inning via a catcher's interference. The next two batters, Ben Rice and Volpe, worked walks to load the bases. DJ came through with an RBI infield single that kicked off the A’s pitcher Spence to make it a 3-0 game. 

Warren served up a leadoff double in the top of the fifth inning, then walked a batter to work into trouble. However, Warren settled down to working into and out of trouble to put together a scoreless inning. 

Tim Hill replaced Warren on the mound, and the first two batters reached base via a leadoff single followed by an error at third base from Jazz. Hill worked out of trouble with some help from a tailor-made 4-6-3 double play as well as a strikeout to end the frame. 

Will Warren's final line: five innings pitched, two hits allowed, zero runs allowed, four walks, 11 swings and misses, and seven strikeouts on 100 pitches.  Warren threw his fastball 41% of the time, the sinker 27%, the sweeper 13%, the changeup 10%, and the curveball 9% of the time. Warren was really solid today, getting through five shutout innings. It was a grind of a first and fifth inning, but I’ll never complain about a scoreless outing. 

Ferndado Cruz took over for Hill on the mound in the top of the seventh inning and retired the A’s in order. 

Luke Weaver came in to pitch in the top of the eighth inning, taking over for Cruz, and retired the A’s in order, as well as picking up a strikeout. 

Devin Williams was called upon to pitch the top of the ninth inning and close this ballgame out, and did just that, picking up the save to end this one 3-0 final. 

The Yankees will look for the series win tomorrow with Clarke Schmidt getting the start, facing off against former Yankees J.P. Sears for the A’s. The first pitch is scheduled for 1:05 p.m. ET on the YES Network. 

My thoughts on the game: The Yankees had a solid win tonight. Solid start from Warren, he had to work around a good amount of traffic with his four walks, but he did a great job of getting through five shutout innings. The bullpen did their job as Hill, Cruz, Weaver, and Williams combined for four shutout innings to close the game out. Jazz with another home run tonight as he has been awesome since he came off the IL and started swinging at 70% effort instead of swinging for the fences every time. Belli also had two hits tonight, and DJ had a big RBI single. Not a ton of offense tonight, but they did enough to get the win. On to tomorrow with a solid opportunity to win the series. Boone also announced, following tonight's game, that Marcus Stroman will officially be activated from the IL and start on Sunday.