JP Sears Outduels Montas. NY 2 Oakland 1

June 29, 2022 paperbacklou 2022 0

JP Sears pitched a shutout into the 6th inning, and the bullpen wrapped it up allowing 2 runs against Frankie Montas to stand up for the 2-1 Yankee win.

It was Sears’ second shutout start — he has now pitched 12.2 innings in the big leagues over 4 appearances and not allowed a run. He has a record of 3-0 0.00.

NY improved to 55-20. Oakland fell to 25-51.

The Yankees are now 12.5 games ahead of 2nd place Toronto, and 13 ahead of Boston (which lost to Toronto to fall out of 2nd). NY is 14 ahead of Tampa.

1. Sears Fantastic

JP Sears is a 5’11” lefty who was drafted by Seattle in the 11th round of the 2017 June draft. He was traded to the Yanks with Juan Then for Nick Rumbelow in 2017. In 2021 with Scranton he was 7-0 2.87.

He used a 95-MPH fastball, an 85-MPH changeup, and an 81-MPH slider to go thru the Oakland lineup like water — getting lots of ground balls and lots of outs.

He was helped by tremendous Yankee defense — including Jose Trevino behind the plate who picked a runner off 1st in the 2nd inning, and threw a runner out trying to steal in the 4th.

Josh Donaldson helped Sears out with a Graig Nettles-esq dive down 3rd to spear a line drive in the 6th.

Sears credited the defense behind him for the win. About his own pitching, he said “I try to go with the mentality that I attack hitters with what I got. I’m going to throw fastballs at you, and some off speeds based off of that. I’m really just trying to fill up the zone and be as efficient as I can be, and that’s what I was trying to do tonite.”

2. Yanks Get 2 off Montas

Frankie Montas is one of the better young pitchers in the American League and he showed it with 7 strong innings — but the Yanks were able to produce 2 runs off him and that was enough.

In the bottom of the 1st, DJ LeMahieu walked, and with 2 outs (after 2 strikeouts), Josh Donaldson doubled.

With runners on 2nd and 3rd — Jose Trevino got a big 2-out hit to make it 1-0 NY.

The Yanks added a run on a Marwin Gonzalez homer in the bottom of the 2nd and that was it for the Yankee scoring.

3. Bullpen Holds ‘Em

Ron Marinaccio, Wandy Peralta, and Michael King pitched shutout ball to bring the game to the 9th. Clay Holmes got the first 2 outs, and then got Sean Murphy to ground out to apparently end the ballgame — as John Sterling went into his “The Yankees Winnnnn” call on the radio.

But nobody left the field.

The ump had called Catcher’s Interference, as Trevino’s glove touched the bat. So play resumed with a runner on 1st.

Two consecutive singles followed to make it 2-1, with runners on 1st and 2nd and the ballgame in the balance.

But Holmes got Tony Kemp to ground out for the old ballgame.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401355352

 

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*