The New York Yankees take series from the Oakland A's behind a dominant Masahiro Tanaka

The New York Yankees defeated the Oakland Athletics on Thursday afternoon.  The game took place at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York and the final score was 6-2 Yankees.  Masahiro Tanaka started and after having a tough second inning didn't allow a hit the rest of the game.  Cole Figueroa who just got called up from AAA had two doubles, Jacoby Ellsbury had a couple of RBI and Brett Gardner had three hits and got announced to the All Star Team as an injury replacement. 

Tanaka pitched 7 2/3 innings giving up two runs with only one of them earned on two hits.  He walked one and struck out six and he earned his fifth win of the season.  Chasen Shreve pitched an inning giving up a hit and Adam Warren struck out the only batter that he faced. 

Jesse Chavez pitched five innings giving up seven hits and four runs.  He walked three and struck out three and lost his ninth game of the season.  Fernando Abad pitched an inning striking out one batter, Eric O'Flaherty pitched an inning with a walk and a strikeout and Fernando Rodriguez pitched an inning giving up a hit and two unearned runs with a walk and two strikeouts. 

Ellsbury had a hit, two RBI and drew a walk, Gardner had three hits and an RBI and Mark Teixeira had a hit and an RBI.  Brian McCann drew a walk, Didi Gregorius drew a walk and Chris Young drew a walk.  Stephen Drew had a hit and drew a walk, Figueroa had two hits and two doubles and Gardner hit a homerun.  The Yankees were 2-9 with runners in scoring position and left eight men on base.  McCann committed an error. 

Josh Reddick had a hit, Billy Butler had a hit and an RBI and Ike Davis drew a walk.  Mark Canha had a hit and an RBI, Butler and Canha each hit a double and the A's were 1-4 with runners in scoring position and left three men on base.  Semien committed an error which was his MLB leading 28th of the season. 

In the first Gardner hit a solo homerun giving the Yankees a 1-0 lead.   In the second Butler hit an RBI double to tie the game at one.  Canha followed it up with an RBI double of his own and it was 2-1 Oakland.  In the third the Yankees tied the game at two on a Teixeira RBI single.  Ellsbury hit a two run single in the fourth giving the Yankees a 4-2 lead.  In the eighth Ellsbury reached on a throwing error and two runs scored to make it 6-2 and that would be the final score.  The Yankees took two out of three in the series and four out of six on the homestand.  The Yankees will play their last three games before the All Star Break in Boston beginning on Friday night.