The Oakland Athletics have played two games at Yankee Stadium this week and have won both, securing their first series victory over the New York Yankees since 2007. After Brandon Allen powered the team to victory Tuesday night, Coco Crisp was the hero on Wednesday. The veteran center fielder, more known for his speed and defense, had a career day at the plate as he was 4-for-4 with 5 RBIs and hit home runs from both sides of the plate for the first time in his career.
The A’s once again jumped on top early in the game when Crisp hit his first home run in the first inning, giving the A’s a 1-0 lead. The Yankees worked their way into a 2-1 lead on a Derek Jeter RBI single in the third inning and a Nick Swisher home run in the sixth inning. C.C. Sabathia was cruising at this point and seemed ready to squad the A’s.
The A’s quickly jumped back into the game in the eighth inning. Kurt Suzuki led off the inning with a single and advanced to second on a Cliff Pennington sacrifice before scoring on a Scott Sizemore double. Sizemore had a monster day himself going 4-for-4 with the RBI and two runs scored. Jemile Weeks followed with a walk and Coco Crisp then drove in Sizemore to give the A’s a 3-2 lead.
Grant Balfour came on in relief in the eighth and proceeded to give up a leadoff home run to Mark Teixeira. The Yankees then put men on first and second, but Balfour was able to get out of the inning without any further damage.
The teams exchanged zeros in the ninth inning before Rafael Soriano came on in relief of Mariano Rivera in the tenth inning. After forcing Kurt Suzuki to ground out, Soriano gave up singles to Cliff Pennington and Scott Sizemore. Jemile Weeks struck out swinging, bringing up Coco Crisp for his fifth plate appearance of the game. Crisp proceeded to hit the first Soriano offering into the second deck, giving the A’s a 6-3 lead.
Andrew Bailey would give up a two out solo home run to Nick Swisher, but that was all the Yankees could muster as they fell 6-4. The win improves the A’s to 59-70 and moves them 14 games back of the Rangers in the AL West. The Yankees drop to 77-50 and sit one game back of the Red Sox in the AL East.
The Yankees and A’s wrap up their three game series at 10:05am pacific Thursday morning. The A’s will send out Rich Harden to face Phil Hughes as the A’s look for their first sweep of the Yankees since 2006. The game will be broadcast on CSN California.