Oakland @ New York preview
Yankee Stadium
Last Meeting ( Aug 31, 2010 ) Oakland 3, NY Yankees 9
The New York Yankees are once again alone in first place - and they’re getting healthy.
New York hosts the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees lead the American League East by a game over Tampa Bay.
Andy Pettitte is scheduled to throw an intense side session before the game. Pettitte also threw on Sunday and reported no discomfort. He rated his arm strength a nine and said he needed only more conditioning before returning.
Should Pettitte’s session go well he expects to rejoin the rotation in mid-September.
The Yankees also announced that slugger Alex Rodriguez will come off the disabled list on Sunday and should play immediately.
That’s bad news for the rest of the major leagues.
New York has the best record in baseball and regained sole possession of first place in the East by hammering the Athletics for the second straight game on Tuesday. The Rays, meanwhile, lost to Toronto 13-5 to fall out of the tie for first place.
Mark Teixeira hit one of three homers as the Yankees crushed the Athletics 9-3.
Teixeira cracked a three-run homer, his 30th of the year, in a four-run fourth as the Yankees broke the game open. Nick Swisher and Curtis Granderson also homered in the contest.
Phil Hughes (16-6) cruised to the victory, allowing four hits and two runs in five innings. He walked five and fanned one.
Vin Mazzaro (6-7) took the loss, surrendering nine runs, seven of them earned, on seven hits in 3 2/3 innings.
New York scored three times in the first and never trailed. Jorge Posada capped the scoring in the inning with an RBI triple. Swisher hit a two-run homer in the third inning to increase the lead to 5-1.
Daric Barton homered for Oakland.
The enigmatic A.J. Burnett starts for the Yankees on Wednesday. Burnett is one of the lone issues the club has to worry about heading into the postseason. At times Burnett has been good, but lately he’s been awful.
Burnett has not won since he blanked Cleveland for 6 1/3 innings in New York’s 8-0 win on July 28. He had pitched five shutout innings in a win over the Kansas City Royals in the game prior to that.
Since then he’s struggled badly. Burnett has lost four of his last five outings and was hammered by the Chicago White Sox last time.
In that game, he allowed nine runs in just 3 1/3 innings to raise his ERA to a season-high 5.17.
Brett Anderson will start for the A’s, which have lost contact with AL West-leading Texas. Oakland is 8 1/2 games behind the Rangers.
Anderson is just 1-4 in six starts since returning from a bout with elbow soreness. The left-hander is 0-2 with a 5.68 ERA against the Yankees in three games.