Yankees offense flat in blowout loss to A’s

New York—The Yankees lose by a touchdown to the A’s in a brutal 7-0 beatdown. Clarke Schmidt, who came into the game with a 25.1 scoreless inning streak, got the starting nod for the Yankees and faced off against former Yankee J.P. Sears for the A’s. 

Smchidt worked an easy 1-2-3 top of the first inning on just seven pitches to extend his scoreless inning streak to 26.1 innings, the longest scoreless inning streak by a Yankees starter since Mel Stottlemyre went 28 innings in 1967. 

In the bottom of the first inning, Cody Bellinger lined a one-out single to left field on a beautiful piece of two-strike hitting. However, Belli was quickly erased on a double play off the bat of Aaron Judge to end the inning. 

Schmidt picked up his first two strikeouts of the ballgame in the top of the second inning to help work around a two-out single and put together another scoreless inning. 

In the top of the third inning, Schmidt worked another scoreless inning on just seven pitches, now the longest scoreless inning streak by a Yankees starter since Whitey Ford went 28 straght scoreless innings back in 1958. 

DJ LeMahieu led off the bottom of the third inning with a walk, and a couple of batters later, Belli worked a walk of his own to put two on with two outs for Judge. However, Judge flew out to end the inning as Judge is now 9-for-his-last-50. 

With one out in the top of the fourth inning, Brent Rooker launched a solo home run to give the A’s a 1-0 lead and end Schmidt's scoreless inning streak of 28.2 innings. 

Back-to-back walks to start the top of the sixth inning came back to bite Schmidt as he went on to serve up a three-run home run to Nick Kurtz to make it a 4-0 game. 

Paul Goldschmidt led off the bottom of the sixth inning with a single up the middle to snap an 0-for-20 slide. 

Ian Hamilton replaced Schmidt on the mound in the top of the seventh inning and worked into and out of trouble to strand two runners on base as well as work a scoreless inning. Hamilton and A’s shortstop got a little heated at eachother following the final out of the inning because Haliton was unhappy Willson wasnt running out of the box. 

"He wasn't running out of the box,” Hamilton said. “I was upset with the inning, and that was that. He asked me what I said, and I just walked off."

Clarke Schmidt's final line: six innings pitched, four hits allowed, four earned runs, two walks, 13 swings and misses, and seven strikeouts on 85 pitches. Schmidt threw his cutter 45% of the time, the slider 24%, the knuckle-curve 11%, the fastball 9%, the sinker 7%, and the sweeper 5% of the time. Schmidt was really solid for the first five innings today; unfortunately, he ran out of gas in the sixth inning and received no run support from his offense as well. 

"I'm not out there like, oh, OK, we haven't been scoring. I have to be perfect," Schmidt said. But when it's a 0-0 ball game, I definitely pitch differently. And when it's 1-0, you have to be a little bit more fine. And you can't make too many mistakes. So I would say the score more dictates the way I pitch. More than me thinking that guys aren't going to get hits because they haven't hit. So I'd say, yeah, just situationally, I think just being aware of the scores is definitely a factor." 

Anthony Volpe worked a one-out walk in the bottom of the seventh inning but was quickly erased due to a double play from Austin Wells to end the inning. 

Allan Winans took over for Hamilton on the bump in the top of the eighth inning and immediately walked back-to-back hitters, then a pop-up bunt somehow dropped in between Winans and Wells for a single to load the bases with nobody out. Tyler Soderstrom made it a 5-0 game via a sacrifice fly. A couple batters later, Austin Wynns picked up a RBI single, and a second run came around to score on a throwing error from Belli to make it a 7-0 game. 

Winnans remained in the game for the top of the eighth inning and worked a scoreless inning. 

Judge worked a leadoff walk in the bottom of the ninth but that would be all for the Yankees as they went down with at much of a fight losing this one 7-0. 

“It's just baseball, and yeah, I mean we just haven't performed our best the last couple weeks, but you know there's gonna be ups and downs," Goldy said. "I think the point is just to keep going, keep making you know the adjustments that are needed individually and as a group, and have good at-bats and know that we're a very capable team. You know, just take it day by day, go out there and try to win as many games as possible.”

The Yankees will look to bounce back tomorrow and win the series withe Marcus Stroman on the mound facing off against former Yankee Luis Severino for the A’s. The first pitch is scheduled for 1:35 p.m. ET on the YES Network. 

My thoughts on the game: One of the worst losses of the season, just an unwatchable game from start to finish. Schmidt looked solid but unfortunately you can’t win if you cant score. Only two hits on the day against the A’s is not ideal but still a chance to potentially win the series tommomw. But honestly with Stroman pitching tomorrow I dont have much faith.