OAKLAND, Calif. — Tony Kemp’s two-run home run in the eighth inning gave the A’s a 3-1 lead against the New York Yankees. His fifth home run of the year was his third against the Yankees.
Kemp homered off Yankees reliever Chad Green in a rally that started with Mark Canha’s double over left fielder Joey Gallo’s head.
In his third big league start this year, Paul Blackburn blanked the red-hot Yankees lineup through five innings. He gave up five hits, all singles hit in each inning, and struck out one and walked one.
The A’s lathered up a few more scoring opportunities against Yankees starter Jordan Montgomery, but were characteristically fruitless in their attempts to score. The A’s loaded the bases on a pair of hits from Yan Gomes and Jed Lowrie followed by an error by third baseman Gio Urshela on Matt Chapman’s grounder.
Canha, in need of a big hit to break a slump in which he’s batting .141 in August, was called out on an inning-ending double play. But the call was reversed on replay, giving the A’s a run, an unearned one for Montgomery.
The Yankees squeezed out an unearned run against reliever Jake Diekman thanks to back-to-back errors on pinch hitter Anthony Rizzo’s at-bat in the seventh inning. Gary Sanchez at second base with two outs, Rizzo hit a pop up foul that popped out of catcher Gomes’ glove. Rizzo hit a ground ball 88mph to Chapman, who was vacuuming up sharp grounders all afternoon, but saw it slide under his glove to score the game-tying run.
The A’s loaded the bases against Jonathan Loaisiga, but Gomes struck out to end the threat.
Yusmeiro Petit, Deolis Guerra and Andrew Chafin pitched scoreless innings to keep the A’s in it.
