Pitching duel in highlight as Yankees, A’s meet

A repeat of one of the season’s strong pitchers’ duels provides the marquee matchup Saturday night when Carlos Rodon and the New York Yankees continue their road series against JP Sears and the Oakland Athletics.

Needing a win to stay four games ahead of the Baltimore Orioles atop the American League East, the Yankees (90-64) rode a brilliant pitching performance by Gerrit Cole and a triumphant appearance by the injured Juan Soto to a 4-2, 10-inning win in the series opener.

The win, coupled with the presence of the left-handed Sears, could prompt Yankees manager Aaron Boone to keep Soto out of the lineup for a second straight day Saturday. Boone admitted to being “cautious” when electing to scratch his MVP candidate on Friday because of a bruised knee, and he made no assurances Soto would be seen as anything more than a pinch hitter until 100 percent healthy.

Soto suffered the injury when sliding into the wall in foul territory in Seattle on Thursday while chasing a fly ball. He had X-rays on Friday that were negative.

“You’ve got to be cautious there,” Boone said of Friday’s lineup. “Just everyone felt it was the best thing to hold him out.”

Soto is listed as day-to-day.

New York leads the season series 3-2.

The Yankees won two of three when the A’s visited New York in April. Oakland’s only win came in the series opener when Sears (11-11, 4.24) and Rodon (15-9, 4.12) both left a scoreless game that turned into a 2-0 triumph by the A’s.

Rodon allowed just one hit and two walks over his seven innings in arguably his best outing of the season. He has been effective in his career against the A’s, going 4-1 with a 2.68 ERA in seven starts.

Rodon didn’t get much support from his offense or his bullpen in the April 22 meeting. The only runs of the game came on a Zack Gelof home run off Victor Gonzalez in the ninth.

Sears matched zeroes with Rodon for six innings, allowing three hits. The former Yankee has never beaten his old team, going 0-3 with a 5.48 ERA in four starts.

The matchup of left-handers features pitchers looking to extend season-bests in wins.

Rodon won a 15th game for the first time in his career in his most recent start, allowing two runs in 5 1/3 innings in a 5-2 home win over the Boston Red Sox last Sunday. The scheduled start against the A’s will be his 31st of the season, tying a career-high for starts.

Sears, meanwhile, has equaled his previous two-year career win total. He debuted with the Yankees in 2022, going 3-0, before getting dealt to the A’s in a six-player deadline deal that featured Frankie Montas going from Oakland to New York.

The A’s (67-87) expect another big gathering for Saturday’s rematch, with just five games remaining at the Oakland Coliseum before the team moves to its temporary home of Sacramento next season as they wait for their new ballpark in Las Vegas to be built.

Friday’s game drew one of their biggest crowds of the season — 23,426 — for the series opener, and A’s manager Mark Kotsay walked away proud that his players had put up a good fight against the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner.

“Good baseball game. We played good,” he said. “We couldn’t get anything going against Cole. We’re not the first team who couldn’t get anything going against Cole.”

-Field Level Media