Grant Balfour watched as Alex Rodriguez's
high fly soared toward right field and thought the worst. Hard to blame him
after Oakland's
first two games at Yankee Stadium.
With his back to the wall, Josh Reddick
caught the ball, then Balfour notched the final out as the Athletics bounced
back to avoid a sweep, edging New York 5-4 Sunday and stopping the Yankees'
seven-game winning streak. cheap
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"The way things went for us in this
series, you never know," Balfour said.
Cliff Pennington hit a go-ahead single in
the sixth inning after a key error by backup shortstop Eduardo Nunez. A day
after their stunning 14-inning loss — capped by a misplay on Nunez's grounder —
the A's maintained their two-game lead for the second AL wild-card spot over the Los Angeles
Angels.
The Yankees kept their one-game lead in the
AL East because Baltimore lost in Boston. Despite the
defeat, the Yankees have to like their chances to win the division — their
final 10 games are against three teams with records below .500.
"We control what happens," Derek
Jeter said. "We play how we're capable of, we win our games. We really
don't have to look at the scoreboard."
The A's lost a 10-9 heartbreaker Saturday
when Brandon Moss misplayed Nunez's spinning grounder for an error with two
outs in the 14th. This time they took advantage of Nunez's two-base throwing
error on a tough play with one out in the sixth.
An out after Josh Donaldson reached second
base, Pennington, the No. 9 batter, singled to left field for his third hit and
a 5-4 lead. Pennington earlier hit a two-run homer.
"To lose two games in extra innings is
tough, especially when these games mean so much," Pennington said.
"It was really still just another game, but it was a big one."
Nunez, demoted in May because of his
struggles in the field, was playing shortstop because Jeter has been slowed by
a sore ankle. Jeter had two hits as the designated hitter to extend his hitting
streak to 17 games.
"I have to keep practicing defense. I
have to keep working," Nunez said. "Tomorrow's a different day."
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Yoenis Cespedes had a tying single in the
fifth after a wild pitch from Hiroki Kuroda (14-11). The A's scored a run in
the first on another wild pitch by the Yankees starter.
Jerry Blevins (5-1) pitched 1 1/3 innings
in relief of A.J. Griffin.
Oakland improved to 2-4 on a 10-game road trip against playoff contenders.
They play four games against West-leading Texas beginning Monday.
In a seesaw series, the A's opened a 3-0
lead but the Yankees rallied for four runs in the fourth before Cespedes tied
it.
"Rarely do you lose a game like you
did last night, and I think coming back from something like that and scoring
early in the game showed some fight right away," A's manager Bob Melvin
said. "It was a big game."
Oakland scored four runs in the 13th inning of Saturday's 5-hour, 43-minute
game, but the Yankees came back. The A's bullpen locked this one down, though,
with 4 2-3 innings of shutout ball. Ryan Cook worked 1 1/3 innings, Sean
Doolittle went an inning and Balfour finished for his 20th save.
"Terrific," Melvin said.
"Our bullpen came up huge for us today."
Donaldson led off the second by beating out
a grounder to shortstop. But replays clearly showed Donaldson's foot a few feet
from coming down on first base when Nick Swisher caught Nunez's low throw. Two
batters later, Pennington homered to right field for a 3-0 lead.
The young A's — 14 rookies on the roster —
kept right on celebrating in their dugout, a day after former teammate and
current Yankee Eric Chavez told a New York columnist that Oakland's rhythmic
clapping during its three-homer spurt in the 13th inning was "high
schoolish."
But in this tight series the Yankees
rallied again, and Raul Ibanez was right in the mix in the fourth inning.
Trailing 3-0 and with only one hit off Griffin through three
innings, the Yankees came back in the fourth when Cano singled and Swisher
homered into the second deck in right field. After two more hits, Ibanez
followed up his two-homer performance Saturday with an RBI double that left a
mark on the right field line to tie it. nba jerseys
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With the infield playing halfway, Nunez
drove in a fourth run with a grounder to second base.
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