The New York Yankees fail to sweep the Oakland Athletics

The New York Yankees were defeated by the Oakland Athletics by the score of 5-4 on Sunday afternoon. The game was played at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York. Hiroki Kuroda started for the Yankees and didn’t pitch very well, the bullpen was ok. Nick Swisher, Derek Jeter and Raul Ibanez led the offense. A.J. Griffin started for the A’s and had a control problem right from the beginning, their bullpen was good and Cliff Pennington led the offense. 
Kuroda pitched 5 2/3 innings giving up seven hits and five runs with four of them being earned. He walked three and struck out five. He suffered his 11^th loss of the season, Clay Rapada pitched 2/3 of an inning striking out one, David Phelps pitched an inning giving up a hit and drew a walk and Boone Logan pitched 1 1/3 innings giving up two strikeouts. Cody Eppley faced one batter and retired him. Griffin pitched 4 1/3 innings giving up seven hits and four runs with three walks and four strikeouts. Jerry Blevins won his fifth game of the season pitching 1 1/3 innings giving up a hit and striking out two, Ryan Cook pitched 1 1/3 innings giving up two hits and striking out a batter and Sean Doolittle pitched an inning walking one and striking out one. Grant Balfour saved his 20^th game of the season pitching a perfect inning with a strikeout.

Jeter had two hits and drew a walk, Ichiro Suzuki had a hit and Robinson Cano had a hit and drew a walk. Swisher had two hits, two RBI and drew a walk, Curtis Granderson had a hit and Russell Martin had a hit and drew a walk. Ibanez had two hits and an RBI, Eduardo Nunez had an RBI. Ibanez hit a double, Swisher hit a homerun and the Yankees were 2-9 with runners in scoring position and left nine men on base. Suzuki had a stolen base and Nunez committed two errors.

Stephen Drew had a hit and drew a walk, Yoenis Cespedes had a hit and an RBI and Brandon Moss had a hit and drew a walk. Gomes drew two walks, Josh Donaldson had two hits and Cliff Pennington had three hits and three RBI. Moss hit a double, Pennington hit a homerun and the A’s were 3-10 with runners in scoring position and left seven men on base. Seth Smith and Doolittle committed an error.

Kuroda threw a wild pitch in the first and the A’s took a 1-0 lead. In the second Pennington hit a two run homerun making it 3-0. In the fourth Swisher hit a two run homerun, Ibanez hit an RBI double and Nunez had an RBI groundout. It was 4-3 Yankees and the A’s tied the game in the fifth inning. Cespedes hit an RBI single. In the sixth Pennington hit an RBI single in the sixth to give the A’s a 5-4 lead and that was the final score.

The Yankees won two out of three in this series. The Yankees remain one game ahead of the Baltimore Orioles with ten games to go. The Yankees will head to Minnesota and play a three game series beginning on Monday night. The Yankees record fell to 88-64 and the A’s record improved to 86-66.