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Preview: Yankees vs Athletics (6/3/14)

Hiroki-Kuroda-walking-off-mound

Hiroki Kuroda (4-3, 4.57 ERA) opens up the series against Scott Kazmir (6-2, 2.36 ERA) and the A’s. Kuroda is coming off one of his shortest outings of the year, going 5 2/3 innings allowing three runs and nine hits against the Cardinals. He still picked up the win thanks to an uncharacteristic seven runs from his offense.Ā “As a player, I feel responsible to stay healthy and be conditioned so I can compete with these guys for the whole season,” he said. “We all have to get together as a whole and perform well.”

Kazmir is coming off his first complete game in eight years, a one run win against the Tigers on Wednesday.Ā He was outĀ of the Majors since 2011 after being released the Angels during Spring TrainingĀ when heĀ bounced back with Cleveland in 2013. “I feel like I’ve improved a lot as a pitcher,” he said. “I’m always going to have kind of that chip on my shoulder after what happened the last three or four years, but that’s just the competitive side of me. Just got to stick with it.”

Oakland’s payroll is nearly $120 million below New York’s this year, butĀ Oakland is still the favorite to win this series due to a thing called run production. With the best record in the American League at 35-22, the A’s have gottenĀ success out of lesser known players and their aging veterans are still productive. Entering Sunday, they led the league in multiple categories, including runs (290), RBIs (273) and on base percentage (.339). They also have a pitching staff that boasts the league’s best ERA at 2.93 while opponents are hitting a league worst .222.

Notes on the game

Yankees run differential is -23. Oakland +115.

In 11 starts this year, KazmirĀ has allowed more than three runs just once.

Carlos Beltran played three innings in an extended spring game Monday.

 

First pitch at 7:05 PM on Yes