Yankees Rivalry Roundup: All the extra innings you could want

The Yankees were off Monday night, licking their wounds from a pretty tough week. After losing Aaron Judge and then series to the White and Red Sox, hopefully they used the day off to hit a reset button and will come out swinging against the Mets tonight. With no ability to personally make up ground in the AL East, they had to rely on a little bit of help around the league.

Los Angeles Angels (37-31) 9, Texas Rangers (41-24) 6 (12 innings)

The Rangers dropped two of three to the Rays over the weekend, and it’s too early to call this a death spiral, but at home against the Angels, they lost a tough one. Ezequiel Duran blasted a three-run shot in the second inning to put them up early, and although Mike Trout got one back with a single in the third, Texas responded with two more in their half of the frame, now up 5-1.

They just kept giving the Angels chances.

LA put up two in the fifth inning, a wild pitch with Trout on third made it a one-run game, and then Shohei Ohtani stepped to the plate in the seventh:

We didn’t see another run until the 12th, but two more home runs—one from Ohtani and one from Chad Wallach—put the Angels up four in the free frames. The Rangers managed a run in the bottom half thanks to Zach Neto’s error, but Aaron Loup held the line to finally lock up a win for the Angels.

Oakland Athletics (18-50) 4, Tampa Bay Rays 3 (48-21)

The Oakland As are good again???

We probably can’t go quite that far yet, but their sixth win in a row was a takedown of the game’s best team. On the eve of the Reverse Boycott, the squad on the field won a symbolic victory against an ownership group intent on their removal, but ho boy did they make it tense.

I really don’t know enough about the Athletics’ season to say with authority, but this may be the biggest hit of the season so far. Shea Langeliers’ bases-clearing double off Zach Eflin opened the scoring in the fifth, a hammer blow in what had been something resembling a pitcher’s duel to that point.

Langeliers himself scored what was the game winner, on Ryan Noda’s single two batters later. Jose Siri clubbed a three-run home run to make it close, but ex-Yankee prospects James Kaprielian and Ken Waldichuk combined to keep the Rays to just three runs. Waldichuk in particular was a star, with three shutout innings, punching out five Rays and walking zero. What a performance.

Other Matchups

Colorado Rockies (28-40) 4 Boston Red Sox (33-34) 3 (10 innings)

The Red Sox are in a tough division, and have to make hay against bad out-of-division teams to get back into the AL East race. Against the last-place Rockies, they blew a 2-1 lead in the eighth inning, as Elías Díaz bounced a ball into center field to tie the game and put us on a course to extra innings.

In the 10th, managerial genius Alex Cora intentionally walked Ryan McMahon with two out, only for Nick Pivetta to walk the next two hitters and bring in the go ahead run. An error brought another Rockie in to score. An 89-minute rain delay followed, and the Red Sox did scratch across a run in the bottom of the 12th, but that was it for the boys from Boston.

Seattle Mariners (32-33) 8, Miami Marlins (37-30) 1

The M’s jumped all over starter Jesús Luzardo, tagging the lefty for six runs in the first two innings. A pair of doubles, followed by Bryan De La Cruz’s outfield mishap scored the first two runs for Seattle, and a huge three-run home run by JP Crawford in the second was the biggest blow in that frame.

Credit to Luzardo, he actually ended up getting through four innings and buying the bullpen some time, but it was too little too late. The Fish managed just a single run against Bryce Miller, and were ultimately dusted aside.