Yankees 13, Athletics 8. All 13 of those runs came in one inning. The third inning. Before Aaron Boone had a chance to look nervous about anything (and he always finds something).
The New York Yankees sent 18 batters to the plate in the top of the third at Sutter Health Park on Sunday, scored 13 runs, and turned a 3-0 deficit into a lead so large that the rest of the game felt like a formality. It's the second-most runs the franchise has scored in a single inning in its history -- the record is 14, set way back in 1920, before most of the current roster's grandfathers were born.
From Error to Explosion
This one started badly. Trent Grisham dropped a routine fly ball in the first inning, and the A's capitalized immediately -- two runs scored, then Lawrence Butler added a single to make it 3-0 before the Yankees recorded a hit. Grisham walked back to the dugout and (I'll assume) stared at the grass for a while.
The A's were putting up Jacob Lopez against Will Warren, and through two innings, Lopez looked just fine. Then the third started.
Paul Goldschmidt reached on an infield single. Ben Rice pulled a double to right, scoring Max Schuemann and Austin Wells to tie it 3-3. Aaron Judge punched a single to center and it was 4-3, Yankees, first time they'd held the lead all afternoon. José Caballero worked a walk with the bases loaded (5-3). Grisham -- yes, the same Grisham who'd given away two runs with his glove an hour earlier -- lined one to center and scored two more (7-3).
Lopez was done before the inning was.
Anthony Volpe singled, Schuemann doubled, and then Rice came up for the second time in the same inning. He hit a triple. Two more runs. Yankees 12, A's 3. Cody Bellinger singled home Rice and it was 13-3.
Thirteen runs. Eighteen batters. Lopez and two relievers couldn't stop the bleeding until all 13 were on the board. The Yanks had sent the entire lineup to the plate plus four more, and the last man standing from the A's pitching staff probably wanted to find a long cab ride.
Ben Rice, the Star
Ben Rice had a double and a triple in the same inning. That's not a thing that happens very often.
His final line was 2-for-5, 4 RBI -- but the raw numbers don't really capture it, because both hits came in the same rally, both had runners on base, and the first one (the double that tied the game with the Yankees still down two) was the moment the whole third inning hinged on. Before that hit, Lopez was dealing with a manageable situation. After it, he never recovered.
Rice is batting out of the two-hole and has 4 RBI in a single regular-season inning. There's probably already an ESPN feature on his "under-the-radar rise" -- it's going to look more embarrassing with every passing week.
Will Warren Does His Job
Warren went 6.0 innings, allowed 3 runs, none of them earned -- because all three came on the Grisham error in the first. He gave up 6 hits and 3 walks, struck out 5, and cruised through the middle innings while the bullpen watched a 10-run lead hold itself together.
His record is now 7-1. His ERA is 3.22. At some point, people in the AL are going to need to take him seriously as a Cy Young conversation.
The bullpen had a rough seventh -- Tim Hill came in and gave up a Brent Rooker solo shot, then Jonah Heim crushed a three-run homer to right center to cut it to 13-7. Fernando Cruz gave up another run in the eighth. But when you're up 10 runs entering the late innings, you're not exactly playing with fire.
David Bednar closed it out in the ninth. That's all you needed.
Grisham's Two-Way Afternoon
Grisham's error in the first legitimately gifted the A's 2 of their 3 runs in that inning. His 2-RBI single in the third helped erase it. That's about as clean a redemption arc as a single game allows.
The line was 1-for-5, 2 RBI -- not flashy, but he could've finished 0-for-5 and this was still a win. The inning didn't need a Grisham redemption. It just happened to get one.
The Yanks took this series 2-1 in Sacramento and are 36-23. They're now waiting to see if the schedule starts getting nicer -- and if Warren keeps pitching like he has all year, the rotation's going to be hard to beat in any month.
Jimmy writes the Bronx Pinstripes game recap after every Yankees game. Beat-reporter pacing, fan's heartbeat. He calls opposing players by last name and has no patience for dead-air innings.
