WEST SACRAMENTO -- The Yankees couldn’t make it a six-game winning streak.
But they sure made it interesting.
Down by five runs with two outs and the bases loaded in the ninth inning, the Yankees threatened to upend Saturday night’s game when Ben Rice, Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger drew consecutive walks, all of which forced in runs.
Finally, though, Jazz Chisholm Jr. grounded out to first base to end the threat and the Yankees’ 6-4 loss to the A’s at Sutter Health Park.
Starting pitcher Ryan Weathers allowed three home runs, including a two-out, two-run dinger to Nick Kurtz in the seventh that went down as the biggest blow of the night. After a two-out walk to Colby Thomas, Weathers had already thrown a career-high 106 pitches, and Yankees manager Aaron Boone jogged out for a visit. Boone kept the southpaw in the game to face Kurtz, but the lefty slugger jumped on a first-pitch fastball and sent it just over Trent Grisham’s head to give the A’s a 5-1 lead.
Kurtz’s homer added the fourth and fifth runs of the night to Weathers’ line, snapping a streak of six straight quality starts by Yankees pitchers that dated back to Gerrit Cole on May 22. Weathers also allowed a two-run shot to Shea Langeliers in the first inning, but he settled down until Tyler Soderstrom’s solo homer in the sixth. He struck out 10 hitters, tied for his most as a Yankee.
After scoring 36 runs over the course of their five-game winning streak, the Yankees were silenced for most of Saturday’s game. They came close to a big inning multiple times: Judge’s deep fly ball to right field was caught on the warning track in the fifth, and Rice came up with two on and two out in the seventh but struck out swinging. While their three straight RBI walks in the ninth made the game interesting, it turned out to be too little, too late.