J.A. Happ struggles, water is wet, and the Yankees lose 6-4

At this point in the season, we could pretty much open up any previous game recap of a J.A. Happ start and copy and paste the results. He was killed by home runs once again. It appeared that he had a hard time getting on the same page as Gary Sanchez, and he shook him off all game to avoid his off-speed stuff. The Yankees’ bats weren’t able to pick Happ up, and they dropped the second game of this series in Oakland 6-4.

With two outs in the second, Khris Davis snapped an 0-for-17 streak with a two-run dinger to right field. After a leadoff walk to Josh Phegley in the third, Marcus Semien homered to left to make it a 4-1 game. Happ settled down in the fourth, but got into trouble in the fifth. He surrendered a leadoff double to Jurickson Profar, plunked Phegley, and walked Semien to load the bases. That was the end of the struggling southpaw’s night.

Chad Green took over and nearly escaped the bases-loaded jam, but a two-out single pushed a run across. Green came back out for the sixth inning and promptly allowed a home run to Stephen Piscotty. He went three innings, and didn’t give up another run.

As for the Yankee offense, it took them awhile to get going. They scored one run in the second inning after Didi Gregorius doubled and Mike Tauchman hit an RBI single. They tacked on another run in the sixth thanks to Tauchman after loading the bases. In the seventh, Mike Ford hit a solo shot, and Didi Gregorius hit an RBI double to bring the Yankees within striking distance. After that A.J. Puk made his debut and allowed both Mikes to get on base. Unfortunately, Liam Hendriks shut the Bombers down for the remainder of the game.

It’ll be up to Masahiro Tanaka to try and salvage this series tomorrow. The series finale starts at 9:37 PM ET and you can catch it on YES.