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Preview: Yankees @ Athletics (6/11/13)

CC Sabathia (6-4, 3.74 ERA) takes the mound against the Oakland A’s and their ace Bartolo Colon (7-2, 3.14 ERA) in the first game of three. CC pitched a complete game against the Indians in his last start, his second straight solid outing after a rough patch. The ace has been compensating for a dip in velocity by leaning on his curve and changeup. However, against Cleveland, he seemed to be back in form and pitching with authority (and velocity). “He looked real good. He had no-hit stuff,” Brett Gardner said. “He looked really good. The final line, he gave up four runs, but I thought he pitched great.”

It is going to be ace versus ace because Colon has won four straight starts, posting a minuscule 0.90 ERA and 1.07 WHIP in that time. Overall, he’s pitched just six walks in 77 1/3 innings. In Bartolo’s last start, he allowed only five hits as he shut out the White Sox. He lost to the Yankees earlier this season, giving up three runs on six hits over 5 1/3 innings on May 4. “Sometimes against teams that are really aggressive, you almost want to tell him, ‘Hey, you could throw a ball every now and then,'” manager Bob Melvin said Wednesday. “But there’s so much movement on his ball that even aggressive swingers, when they start their swing path, the ball moves so much that even when they’re aggressive and swinging at strikes, it’s not on the barrel off the bat.”

Kevin Youkilis sat out of Sunday’s series finale in Seattle due to stiffness in his lower back after he slid into first base to make a play on defense the day before. Joe Girardi was hopeful that Youkilis would be ready to play in Oakland if he took off Sunday and got to rest more on Monday’s off day. “My hope is after playing five days in a row, the next time he’ll be able to play six,” Girardi said. “We’ve got a couple of six-day stretches that hopefully we can run him out there every day.” Youk said that the injury was “nothing like it was before” that landed him on the DL.

 

Notes on the game.

Robinson Cano went 0-3 and was hit by a pitch Sunday, overall he is 4-33 in 10 games dating back to May 31. Girardi said he hasn’t seen anything different with Cano, just that he’s “going through a little bit of a time when he’s struggling.”

Vernon Wells had a multi hit game on Saturday, his first since May 13. He hoped it would bring him out of his current slump, but no such luck as Sunday he went 0-2.

The As have won 18 of their last 23

 

Game kicks off at 10:05 PM (EST) on Yes