13th Straight — Powered by Stanton, Judge, Voit & Cole Pitching; NY 8 Oak 2

August 28, 2021 paperbacklou 2021 0

Gerrit Cole pitched 6 shutout innings, and Giancarlo Stanton, Luke Voit, and Aaron Judge took turn hitting homers to power the Yanks to their 13th straight win — an 8-2 victory over the A’s in Oakland on a Friday night. (Higgy hit a HR too for insurance!) The 13-game winning streak is the longest Yankee winning streak since 1961 — 60 years ago.

The win kept the Yanks 4 games back of Tampa, which won again (they’ve won 9 of 10).

1. Stanton & Voit HR’s Give NY 2-0 Lead

The game was shaping up as a pitchers’ duel between Gerrit Cole and Sean Manaea, the 6’5 lefty who came in with an 8-8 3.77 record. It was 0-0 through 3 innings, when Giancarlo Stanton led off the 4th with a 472-foot Ballistic Missile to centerfield. He scared the crap out of people sitting in the upper deck in centerfield a million miles from home plate — they could probably barely make out the batters without binoculars.

Two batters later, Luke Voit ripped a bomb to center and it was 2-0 Yanks.

2. Judge 3-Run Bomb Makes it 5-0

In the top of the 5th, Kyle Higashioka led off with a single, DJ LeMahieu singled, and after Anthony Rizzo struck out, Aaron Judge hit a Bomb to center for a 5-0 Yankee lead.

3. Cole = Cy Young Like

Meanwhile Gerrit Cole was masterful, mowing down the A’s. He finished with 6 shutout innings, 6 hits, 9 strikeouts, 2 walks and left after 104 pitches with a 5-0 lead.

Cole got in trouble in the 5th but Gio Urshela — playing his first game after being out several weeks with injury — bailed him out of a bases loaded, 2 out situation by snaring a line drive down 3rd.

(Gio also made a nice play down the line with great looping throw to 1st to nail a batter in the 2nd inning.)

Said Cole of his performance: “I had a good mix. At times the location was great; at times the location was kinda subpar. It took me to the 6th inning – 1st pitch of the 6th inning – to really get a fastball extension type down and away and then it got called a ball so I was a like kinda disappointed in that because it was the first time I hit it all night.”

“But we were able to kind of use that part of the zone with the changeups and the sliders, so at least we were utilizing the bottom half of the strike zone, because the fastball was for the most part – it was on both part of the plate – but it was elevated for the most part of the game. So.. I finished stronger than I started.”

Cole improved his record to 13-6 2.80 and got his 200th strikeout of the season. He is a leading contender for the Cy Young Award, which he’s never won.

Another leading contender for the Cy Young — Chris Bassitt of Oakland (12-4 3.22) has been placed on the 10-day IL after getting hit by a line drive that broke his cheek bone in a loss to the White Sox earlier in the week. Bassitt was scheduled to face the Yanks this weekend.

4. Oakland Closes to 5-2

Joely Rodriguez pitched the 7th and didn’t get through it — a walk, single, single by Matt Olson plated 2 runs after a throwing error by Joey Gallo, making it 5-2 NY and bringing Chad Green into the game. Green walked Jed Lowrie to put 1st and 2nd, 1 out but then got Josh Harrison to ground into a double play to end the threat.

5. Yanks Put It Away in 9th

Andrew Velazquez led off the 9th with a double off Birch Smith, and Kyle Higashioka homered to give NY a 7-2 lead and seemingly put the game away.

And before you could turn around DJ LeMahieu singled, Anthony Rizzo singled, and Aaron Judge singled LeMahieu home for the 8-2 final score.

Lucas Luetge, who hadn’t pitched in a while, threw a 1-2-3 9th for the old ballgame.

Etcetera

  • Aaron Judge went 3-5 with the homer, and 4 RBI’s. He is now 8th in the American League with a .291 batting average, and 8th in the American League in On Base Percentage (OBP) with a .383.
  • Judge is slashing 28-70-.291 (.383 OBP, .915 OPS) and has been consistently good all season but never quite red hot. He looks like he is getting hot now and if he stays hot for the month of September he could be in the middle of a big season.
  • There are only 6 players in the American League right now batting .300 or higher — Michael Brantley of Houston leads with a .320 average — making Judge’s .291 loom large.
  • Giancarlo Stanton went 2-4 with the homer to improve his not-too-shabby slash line to 24-67-.269 (.367 OBP, .862 OPS). Yes indeed the Yankees finally have Judge and Stanton healthy and hitting well at the same time.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401228982

 

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