Programming note: A's-Yankees coverage starts Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. with A's Pregame Live on CSN California.
In an A’s season filled with odd stats and trends, maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that this team is playing its best baseball away from home.
By ringing up their first extra-inning victory of the season in Tuesday’s 4-3 win over the Yankees, the A’s evened their road record at 21-21. Their mark in front of the home fans is 18-26. Don’t try to analyze, it’ll only make your head hurt.
[INSTANT REPLAY: Lawrie's home run lifts A's past Yankees in 10]
But it was a good way for Oakland to begin a six-game road trip. Here’s some other tidbits from a 10-inning victory in the Bronx …
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Who would have guessed that the A’s would go the power route to first tie Tuesday’s game, then take the lead. Billy Butler spanked the first pitch he saw from Chasen Shreve in the sixth for a solo shot to knot the score 3-3. Then Brett Lawrie’s eyes lit up when Dellin Betances hung a curve in the 10th, and Lawrie drilled it for the go-ahead homer.
The A’s have hit just 72 homers as a team, which places them 11th in the American League.
Lawrie’s homer came after he struck out in each of his first three at-bats.
“That’s Brett Lawrie in a nutshell,” catcher Stephen Vogt said. “Whether the guy punches out three times or he’s 4-for-4, you know he’s gonna clutch up. He wants those kinds of at-bats.”
The situation didn’t look promising in the 10th after Lawrie fouled off a 97 mile-per-hour fastball, then took a nasty curve for strike two.
“The first pitch, I fouled it off. It just got right on me,” Lawrie said. “Then the next pitch I turned like it was gonna hit me in the face and next thing it was 0-2. I went into grind mode. Thankfully enough, I stuck with the curve ball. I knew he probably wasn’t gonna go back to the heater.”
Lawrie came in with five homers in 81 at-bats against lefties, but just two in 211 at-bats against righties. Betances is one of the hardest throwing right-handers in the game.
[RELATED: Schaaf: Oakland having 'really productive talks' with A's]
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Not surprisingly, Sonny Gray wasn’t his sharpest early on Tuesday. After a 12-day layoff due to his battle with salmonella, the Yankees got two runs off him in the first inning. He issued three walks in the first four innings. But Gray settled in and completed seven innings, allowing just three runs. It was a pretty impressive effort in his first career start at Yankee Stadium.
“I just felt like as the game went on, I got a little better and better, which was good for me to feel,” Gray said. “To give up two in the first and be able to get through seven and give the team a chance to do what we did was something I was really happy about.”
A’s manager Bob Melvin said he had thoughts of pulling Gray after six innings.
“(But) he said he felt as strong as he had all night to go out for the seventh,” Melvin said.
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The best quote of the night came from Melvin. Or, to be accurate, the most honest quote of the night. Though happy for the way his team began this six-game road trip, Melvin wasn’t about to make too much of one victory.
The A’s are just 7-21 in one-run games.
“We have to sustain it,” he said. “One of these isn’t going to make us who we are. We have to sustain and we have to win games like this, because the problem we’ve had this year is the reason why we have the record we do.”
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With lefty CC Sabathia going for the Yankees on Wednesday, outfielder Jake Smolinski is likely to make his A’s debut. Claimed off waivers from the Rangers on June 21, he was called up from Triple-A Nashville on Tuesday with pitcher Chris Bassitt being sent down.
[RELATED: A's recall Smolinski from Nashville, option Bassitt]
The right-handed hitting Smolinski is a .291 career hitter against lefties. It certainly can’t hurt to give him a look considering the A’s are 5-16 when the opponent starts a southpaw.
