Oakland Athletics edge New York Yankees 4-3 in series opener – MLB Update
Oakland Athletics continued their incredible winning run as they finally beat the New York Yankees at O.co Coliseum in Oakland, California in the opening game of their four match series of the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
Yoenis Cespedes displayed some brutal hitting as he homered to left in the first inning to help Oakland get off to a flying start. Seth Smith also made a valuable contribution with the bat, adding a two run single in the third and the Athletics took a 4-0 lead.
Yankees’ offence that has shown incredible bounce-back ability since the start of the season, for once, failed to live up to the expectations. Mark Teixeira hit a sacrifice fly to centre and Nick Swisher added a single to right in the sixth to reduce Oakland’s lead 2-4.
Swisher, who looked very comfortable on the plate on Thursday, homered to right in the bottom of the ninth to add spice to the proceedings. However, the A’s were good enough to hold on to a one-run lead to complete an emphatic win.
New York’s starting pitcher Freddy Garcia looked a bit out of sorts as he gave up nine hits and four runs in just over five innings. His counterpart from Oakland, A.J. Griffin allowed just two runs in six solid innings.
"I was fighting every pitch. I was in trouble the whole game," Garcia said in a post game interview. "When I threw the fastball they hit and drove in runs."
"It's fun. I didn't have a choice of who I pitched against," he said. "We're having a lot of fun right now. I like to hear the music after games."
"The kid knows how to locate the baseball," Yankees’ manager Joe Girardi said of Griffin. "He changes speeds, works fast and does what he needs to do."
Credit should be given to the Athletics for coming up with a perfect winning formula against the Yankees, who have looked unbeatable at times this season. With their win, the A’s have also moved four games above the .500 win percentage mark and it will be exciting to see if they can carry over the momentum into the next game.
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