Bronx, NY—The Yankees ended their three game series with the Oakland Athletics in superb fashion as the Bronx Bombers bombed their opponent with 22 runs, a 2011 season high for a single game by New York. The 22-9 victory did not erase the two previous games that were lost by scores of 6-4 and 6-5 respectively on Monday and Tuesday. The three games also comprised the season’s shortest home stand. Prior to the three contests, the Yankees played seven games on the road and they now travel again, playing their next six games on the road.
Neither the Yankees nor their fans were disturbed by the length of the afternoon spent at Yankee Stadium. The game was delayed by rain for 89 minutes. The time of the game, four hours and thirty-one minutes was only 14 minutes short of tying the longest nine inning game ever played.
Oakland took a 7-1 lead after 2.5 innings. The game appeared lost and it seemed as if Oakland was on the verge of a three game sweep. Yankees starter Phil Hughes was lifted after two were out in the third. Reliever Cory Wade surrendered a three-run home run to Cliff Pennington, the first batter he faced. Hughes gave up six runs and seven hits during his short stint oin the mound.
The tide soon turned in a dramatic manner as the Yankees scored in five straight innings, the fourth through the eighth. With one out in the fourth, Russell Martin hit a solo homer, the first of five for the Bombers in the contest.
The Yankees batted around in each of the next four frames. The blow responsible for all four Yankees runs in the fifth was a grand slam homer by Robinson Cano. The homer raised Cano’s hitting streak to 16 games.
One inning later, a grand slam by Martin scored all of the Yankees runs in the sixth. The homer gave the Yankees their first lead of the game, 10-7. The two round trippers were Martin’s fourth multi-homer game of the 2011 campaign. He ended the contest with career highs of five hits and six runs batted in for a single game.
The offensive onslaught by the Yanks continued as the game progressed. They scored six runs in each of the next two innings. The big blow was a grand slam homer by Curtis Granderson in the eighth. The three grand slams is a major league record. Grandy, an MVP candidate, now has 36 homers, 103 runs batted in and has scored 119 runs scored. There are 34 regular season games remaining for the Ynkees. After the game, Granderson commented upon the amazing feat, “The fact that we as a team have done something that all the teams have never done before is pretty neat.”
Yankees manager Joe Girardi, amazed and pleased, spoke of the record, “You have to be pretty fortunate to be able to do that. You’ve got to get the bases loaded a lot. It’s a pretty crazy accomplishment when you think about it- three grand slams in one day.”
The Yankees fifth homer of the day, the longest in distance, was hit by Andruw Jones in the eighth.
The Yankees offense was more than the homers and the three men who blasted them. The team hit safely 21 times, drew 13 bases on balls and one batter was hit by a pitch. Ten players got base hits and seven drove in runs.
Derek Jeter got three hits to raise his season average to .299. He passed Rickey Henderson and is only two hits shy with 3.058 of tying Craig Biggio for 20th place in career hits. He passed Jimmy Foxx for 20th place in runs scored in his career. The Yankee captain has reached base in the last 24 games in which he played.
The winning pitcher, lefty Boone Logan, struck out all four batters he faced. His won/loss mark is now 4-2.
