A’s Win a Pitchers Duel Over Yankees

Frustrated after consecutive losses to the Oakland Athletics, the New York Yankees looked to get back on track on Saturday night. An uncharacteristically anemic offense prevented them from doing so as they were defeated 2-1 in a highly entertaining pitchers’ duel.

Both starters, Phil Hughes for the Yankees and Jarrod Parker for the A’s, dealt three scoreless innings to start the game. That ended in the top of the fourth when Alex Rodriguez singled, was moved to third by two consecutive groundouts, and was finally knocked in by a Raul Ibanez RBI single to open the scoring.

Oakland broke Hughes’ run of three scoreless innings in the fourth as well when Yoenis Cespedes blasted a solo home run to left field, his second bomb of the series.

Hughes and Parker both clamped down again following their fourth innings, with another run not coming until the bottom of the eighth, when Brandon Inge led off with a solo home run to right center field off of Hughes, giving the Athletics a 2-1 lead.

In the top of the ninth, Sean Doolittle came on to close it out for the A’s in the place of Ryan Cook who gave up solo home runs in each of the last two games of this series. Alex Rodriguez started things off with a single for the Yankees, and stole second with two outs, but Doolittle struck out Andruw Jones to end the ballgame.

Also of note for the Yankees, Robinson Cano went 0-4 in the game and snapped his 23 game hit streak. Both teams will do battle again tomorrow at 4:05 and you can catch every pitch on 104.5 “The Team” ESPN Radio.

Player of the Game: Jarrod Parker (8 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 5 K)

Jarrod Parker is the third pitcher in as many games to make the Yankees lineup look like a Little League team. He pounded the zone all night long and really put the Yankees behind the eight ball, forcing them to protect the plate often.

“Good Job, Good Effort” Player of the Game: Robinson Cano (0-4, 2 K)

Obviously Cano wasn’t going to get a hit in every game forever, but he looked simply overmatched at the plate against Parker and Doolittle tonight. Hopefully he can pick back up where he left off starting tomorrow afternoon.