A’s start hot, survive late Yankees push to break 4-game losing streak at home
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- Shea Langeliers opened the game with an estimated 420-foot two-run homer.
- J.T. Ginn allowed one unearned run over six innings and his ERA is 2.87.
- Tyler Soderstrom went 3-for-3 with a homer and double and has hits in 10 of 11 games.
Four games into a weeklong West Sacramento home stand, the Athletics hadn’t led a game at any point.
During the rough stretch for starting pitching and clutch hitting, in particular, the A’s in each of those four contests had scored just one run in the first three innings and had fallen behind by at least three runs by that point in the game.
On Saturday, though, that trend of slow starts came to an end.
Starter J.T. Ginn got Sacramento-born New York Yankees superstar Aaron Judge to ground into a double play to end the top of the first inning clean before A’s catcher Shea Langeliers launched a two-run, 420-foot, moonshot home run to dead center in the bottom half of the frame to start the game off hot.
Though a five-walk, three-run ninth inning came close to a catastrophic choke of that hot start, the two first-inning runs would prove to be decisive as the A’s (28-30) beat the Yankees (35-23), 6-4, at Sutter Health Park, snapping a four-game losing streak and tying the series with a Sunday matinée still to come.
“Our success lies in that area — when the offense can get us a lead and obviously add on, and we did both of those things tonight,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said postgame. “That helped there, at the end.”
Despite the win, the second-place A’s still trail in the contested American League West race to the Seattle Mariners, who pushed above .500 at 30-29 with a win Saturday night.
Bullpen nearly blows game
Despite Ginn’s strong start, there was a moment in the contentious top of the ninth inning that the Yankees appeared to have the A’s on the ropes, with “let’s go Yankees” chants overpowering any home-team cheering at the sold-out Sutter Health Park.
Reliever Jack Perkins had struck out both Paul Goldschmidt and Anthony Volpe, but his second walk of the inning, which loaded the bases, led to Kotsay bringing in Scott Barlow to get out of the jam. On three straight 3-2 counts, Barlow walked the meat of the Yankees order, all for RBIs with the bases loaded, to bring up Jazz Chisholm with the game now well within reach.
Though Chisholm grounded out to first to end the drama, Kotsay was not happy with his bullpen’s ninth-inning performance, which included five walks, four of them in a row with two outs.
“Just a lack of command. When you have a five-run lead, you’d like to see your staff go out and attack the zone, get beat with hits,” Kotsay said. “Tonight we were pretty close from giving a game away that we had in our hands.”
Kotsay thinks Ginn could be a ‘front-line guy’
While starting pitching has been a concern as of late for the A’s, especially with both Luis Severino and Aaron Civale hitting the 15-day injured list this week, Ginn has largely been a pillar of consistency, as he proved again Saturday.
The lone run Ginn surrendered in his six innings of work was unearned, coming after a Henry Bolte fielding error allowed a runner to advance to third and second baseman Alika Williams whiffing on a throw to second on a stolen base attempt allowed a run to score.
Faced with a runner on third and one out, Ginn worked out of the jam after surrendering a walk with a key strikeout of Yankees slugger Ryan McMahon followed by a flyout by Austin Wells.
Kotsay said Ginn’s performance was especially important given that the Yankees stacked their lineup with six left-handed hitters, including both McMahon and Wells, which the right-hander has struggled with in the past.
“Six innings tonight against that lineup for J.T. is another great step in the right direction,” Kotsay said. “My hope right now is that J.T. stays healthy and continues to just make this progression towards being a frontline guy.”
After starting the season in Triple-A, Saturday’s start was Ginn’s fifth in a row where he surrendered fewer than two earned runs — including a near no-hitter earlier this month — lowering his season ERA to 2.87, by far the best in the A’s rotation.
In particular, Ginn succeeded in forcing weak contact, getting eight outs on the ground in his six innings of work. He also fanned four Yankees, while walking three and surrendering four hits to earn the win.
“Finding a more consistent pitch mix, especially against left-handed hitters … has been huge for me,” Ginn said of his recent success. “(I’ve) really expanded my arsenal against them.”
Soderstrom hitting his stride
Beyond Ginn, the A’s offense — most notably three of its most-potent sluggers in Langeliers, Tyler Soderstrom and reigning AL Rookie of the Year Nick Kurtz, all of whom homered Saturday — continued applying pressure on the Yankees’ arms late into the game, helping build a lead that could sustain the ninth-inning dramatics.
After the Mariners completed their sweep of the A’s on Wednesday, Kotsay said a long-ball drought was a key part of the team’s slump.
“We talk about our offense being successful when we hit the ball over the fence,” Kotsay said. “We got three able to (tonight).”
Kurtz had three hits, adding singles in the first and fifth innings to his seventh-inning, two-run home run. Soderstrom went 3-for-3 with a walk, including the homer and a double in the bottom of the eighth to help the team score an insurance run.
Soderstrom, the 24-year-old outfielder who in the offseason signed a seven-year, $86 million deal — the largest in franchise history — had struggled for much of the young 2026 campaign.
Overall, Soderstrom was slashing .212/.300/.399 with six home runs heading into Saturday’s game. But the star outfielder has gotten a hit in 10 of his last 11 games, with a .981 on-base plus slugging percentage in that stretch. His season batting average also rose above .200 during that stretch.
“He’s one of those guys that obviously wasn’t happy with where he’s at,” Kotsay said. “And he hasn’t stopped working.”
Soderstrom said after the game that he hasn’t changed anything mechanically during his recent hot streak, but has continued to trust his process, knowing results would follow.
“It felt pretty solid for a while, just didn’t really get much show for it,” Soderstrom said. “I’ve been in this situation before. You’ve just got to battle, and it’s been going good.”
Jacob Lopez will take the mound at 1:05 p.m. Sunday for the A’s series finale against the Yankees at Sutter Health Park.
