New York Yankees 10, Oakland Athletics 5
NEW YORK — New York Yankees batters are getting healthier with the return of Aaron Judge, and the squad is in good shape to take on baseball’s weakest club.
Gleyber Torres hit a home run for the second straight game and drove in three runs as the Yankees beat the Oakland Athletics 10-5 on Tuesday night despite three home runs by rookie Jordan Diaz.
“It just feels good to have offensive production like that,” New York first baseman Anthony Rizzo said.
Diaz hit a solo home run in the fourth inning, a leadoff drive in the seventh, and a two-run homer in the eighth. The Colombian second baseman, who is 22 years old, hit home runs off three different pitchers. He now has four home runs in 30 games in the big league.
Diaz said he had never hit three home runs in a game before, at any level. He plans to keep the souvenir ball from his third home run at home.
He tied Héctor López for the most home runs by a second baseman in a game with three. López did it in a June 1958 game between the Kansas City A’s and the Washington Senators.
Clarke Schmidt (1-3) won his first major league start after tossing a career-high six innings, and Judge (returning from the IL) drove in two runs. The right-hander allowed five hits and two runs. He only walked two and struck out seven.
“I thought his stuff was again good,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I liked the way he was able to kind of all night make little adjustments.”
Schmidt went into the game 0-6 with a 5.47 ERA in his first 12 starts, but he was 5-9 with a 4.33 ERA in 41 games since his debut in September 2020. He was a good closer last year. In 26 relief appearances, he got five wins and two saves and had an earned run average of 2.74.
“Obviously, really happy with where the breaking pitches are at,” Schmidt said. “Just continuing to get better and better each time out. I’m learning a lot.”
Harrison Bader got three more hits for New York. The last of his three RBI singles in a five-run third was the last of three in a row. After Drew Rucinski (0-3) walked the last two hitters in the order after eight pitches, Rizzo and Torres got the other two outs. Judge drove in the first run of the game when Jace Peterson dropped a grounder to third, which was an error.
Anthony Volpe started the eighth inning with a triple, and Judge followed it up with a sacrifice fly. The reigning AL MVP had not played since April 27 due to a right hip strain.
“I thought he looked good. I thought his first at-bat he got off some really good swings,” Boone said.
Jake Bauers got the Yankees (20-17) two runs with a home run and a sacrifice fly. They have scored 24 runs in their last three games, 17 of which came against the A’s (8-29) as they won the first two games of a three-game set.
In the ninth, two runners were already on base when Clay Holmes came in. He struck out three hitters to end the game.
UP NEXT
Rookie right-handed pitcher Jhony Brito (2-3, 6.08) faces off against Oakland left-hander Kyle Muller (1-2, 6.62) on Wednesday afternoon.
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