The Yankees had chances to win this game. They fell behind twice and came back to tie the game both times. And when the A's took the lead a third time, the Yankees again had chances to tie or go ahead. But they couldn't quite do it again as the A's won 5-4 in the series finale on Sunday.
Andy Pettitte got the start for the Yankees looking to bounce back from his bad outing against the Astros. He certainly performed better than he did last time, but I wouldn't necessarily say he looked that much better. Andy went five innings, allowing four runs on four hits and four walks. He allowed a lot of baserunners, and allowed some to score, but did a decent job of getting himself out of trouble a couple times. The A's could have added a lot more runs off of Andy, but Pettitte did enough to allow the Yankees' offense to keep them in it.
But Oakland opened the game's scoring off Pettitte in the third inning. After escaping jams in the first and second innings, Pettitte immediately got himself in another. After battling back to get to a full count after falling behind 3-0, Andy walked Derek Norris to start the inning. Pettitte then hit next batter Jed Lowrie, putting runners on first and second with no outs. Yoenis Cespedes nearly grounded into a double play, but Robinson Cano threw away the throw to first, allowing Norris to score. Andy got the next two hitters out to limit the Yankees' deficit to one run. It was one the Yankees immediately erased in the bottom half of the inning.
Brett Gardner came to the plate with two outs in the third. He got one to drop in down the line in left field, and used his speed to get to second. Next up was Cano, who made up for his error by singling to score Gardner, which tied the game.
The tied score didn't last very long though. Luke Montz led off the fourth inning with a home run off Pettitte giving the A's the lead again. And they added to that lead the next inning. Pettitte walked Lowrie with one out in the fifth inning, bringing Cespedes to the plate. Yoenis took a Pettitte pitch into the Oakland bullpen making it 4-1.
But again, the Yankees battled back to tie the game again in the sixth. Cano led off the inning with a single. Next up was Vernon Wells, who grounded into a force out which got Cano at second. Then was Travis Hafner, whose walk brought the end of the day for Oakland starter Dan Straily. The A's brought in Jerry Blevins to face Ichiro Suzuki. Ichiro singled to score Wells, making it a 4-2 game. After Jayson Nix did the Jayson Nix-thing of failing with RISP, Lyle Overbay got a ball to drop into centerfield to score Hafner and Ichiro. And the game was once again tied.
In the sixth inning, Preston Claiborne made his major league debut. He pitched a pair of 1-2-3 innings and did a nice job of keeping the game tied through seven innings. Boone Logan was brought in to pitch the eighth, and the game wouldn't stay tied for long. Josh Donaldson homered off Logan with one out, giving Oakland the lead for the third time.
The Yankees again had chances to tie the game in the eighth and ninth, but couldn't do it. In the eighth, Hafner and Ichiro singled to put the tying run in scoring position. But Nix and Overbay couldn't bring him home. And in the ninth, there were more chances. After the first two batters went down easily, Brett Gardner came to the plate as the Yankees' final hope. Gardner singled, and the winning run was at the plate in the form of Robinson Cano. After a wild pitch during the at bat allowed Gardner to move up a base, the A's intentionally walked Cano to face Vernon Wells. Wells battled, but struck out on the sixth pitch of the at bat ending the game, giving the A's a 5-4 win.
One last thing to mention, Eduardo Nunez left the game after the sixth inning, due to an injury. This is roughly the 1,458,765th injury for the Yankees this season.
The Yankees are off tomorrow as they travel to Denver to play the Rockies. There's sure to be dingers there.