Yankees 3, Athletics 4: Can’t get away from the west coast fast enough

As has been the case the last several days, the Yankees did not win their baseball game this afternoon. The entire west coast road trip has been a nightmare for the Yankees, and it came to an end in similar fashion against the Athletics on Father’s Day.

New York jumped out to a lead when Matt Holliday’s solo shot in the second inning opened the scoring in the game. Aaron Judge did what Aaron Judge does in the third, driving home Brett Gardner on a single to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead.

Oakland scored four runs in the third inning against starter Luis Cessa. Chad Pinder doubled home two runs to kick off the scoring for the A’s before Khris Davis burned the Yankees again with another home run. New York’s two-run lead became a two-run deficit.

The Yankees got a run back the very next inning when Didi Gregorius tucked a ball just inside the right field foul pole for his seventh homer of the year. Chase Headley very nearly added a home run of his own, but he was unable to keep his fair the same way Didi did.

With one out in the eighth inning Judge reached after being hit by a pitch. Holliday was thrown three straight balls before ultimately grounding into a double play to end any sort of threat. The Yankees got a break in the ninth inning when Didi Gregorius reached on a throwing error that sailed into the dugout with one out. Headley struck out swinging to bring Chris Carter to the plate. He popped up the first pitch he saw to end the game. Sweep complete.

While the offense certainly didn’t score runs like they did in the Orioles series since being out in the Pacific time zone, they scored enough in at least three games (five, seven, and six runs, respectively) that they should have come away with more than one win. The pitching is to blame there, but the answers for struggling pitching are few and far between. CC Sabathia is on the shelf for the better part of a month at least, and Masahiro Tanaka’s struggles are definitely not over.

Teams will be looking to the trade deadline before long to try and solve some of their woes, and it seems overwhelmingly likely that the Yankees will be looking for pitching when that occurs. The problem is that the pitchers expected to be made available don’t seem to be the greatest options. Brian Cashman will be tasked with figuring out who might be worth their price tag.

The Yankees head home to try and regroup a bit on Monday before welcoming the same Angels who beat them twice in three games just a couple days ago. Hopefully they can find a way to stop the bleeding.