Oakland, CA – Derek Norris hit a three-run home run and drove in four as the Oakland Athletics took a 6-4 win over the New York Yankees to open a three-game set.
Coco Crisp added a solo homer while Nate Freiman went 3-for-4 with a run scored for the Athletics, who snapped a two-game skid. Bartolo Colon (8-2) won his fifth straight start as he gave up just three hits and walked a season- high four batters with three strikeouts over six innings.
"At the end of the day he goes six innings and doesn't give up any runs," A's manager Bob Melvin said of Colon. "It's probably not his best stuff of the year, but six innings, no runs is still pretty good."
Mark Teixeira drove in three runs while Vernon Wells also drove in a run for the Yankees, who came into the game having won six of seven. CC Sabathia (6-5) allowed six runs on eight hits over six innings to snap a two-start winning streak.
"I just felt like everything was flat...no really life on the fastball," Sabathia admitted. "It's up to me to go out there and battle and try to keep us in the game and I couldn't do that today."
Oakland got on board in the first as Crisp led off the game with his eighth homer of the year, and Norris doubled home Josh Reddick, who reached base on a fielder's choice, in the second for a 2-0 lead.
In the fourth, Freiman and Chris Young hit consecutive singles and Derek Norris cleared the bags with a shot over the left-center wall to take a 5-0 lead.
A wild pitch from Sabathia in the sixth plated Josh Donaldson for a 6-0 advantage.
New York left the bags loaded in the first, but didn't get a runner past second again until the eighth inning.
With Jerry Blevins on the mound, Brett Gardner and Robinson Cano singled before Mark Teixeira singled for the first run. Later in the frame, Wells singled home Cano to make it a 6-2 game.
Ryan Cook took the mound and got Ichiro Suzuki to groundout and end the frame.
Cook allowed a one-out single to Chris Stewart and a two-out double to Cano in the ninth and that brought out Grant Balfour, who was greeted by a Teixeira single to make it a two-run game.
Travis Hafner then drilled a pitch to deep left-center field, but Seth Smith made the catch at the wall to end the game and give Balfour his 16th save of the season.
Game Notes
Oakland left fielder Yoenis Cespedes left the game after two innings due to tweaking his left hamstring ... Oakland took two of three in New York in early May ... Colon improved to 5-7 over 17 games against the Yankees ... Sabathia fell to 8-10 in 27 starts against the A's.
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