Yankees use Beltran’s homer to win game of singles, beat Athletics 5-3

Source: FanGraphs

The Yankees and Athletics combined for 22 hits on Saturday night, and 21 of them were singles. The one exception: the game-winning two-run home run by Carlos Beltran. New York got back into the win column Saturday with a 5-3 come from behind victory over the A’s. It was their fourth win in their last six games … and their fifth win in their last 17 games. Let’s recap:

• Rally Back: The Yankees took a 1-0 lead in the first inning but were down 3-1 when the comeback started in the fourth. A two-out infield single and an error opened the door, and Chase Headley took advantage with a run-scoring single back up the middle to make it 3-2. An inning later Brian McCann worked a one-out walk, then Beltran unloaded on a flat 0-1 Jesse Hahn sinker for a two-run homer just to the right of dead center. Beltran was doing nothing with those pitches last month. Now he makes the pitcher pay.
• Hit-ovaldi: This game was Nathan Eovaldi at his worst. Eleven hits allowed in 4.2 innings, including a leadoff single in each of the first four innings and five two-strike hits. He threw a first pitch strike to 14 of 24 batters and got just five swings and misses out of 96 total pitches. Somehow Eovaldi surrendered just three runs — it helped that all eleven hits were singles — but gosh was he maddening. Even moreso than usual.
• Lock Down: The bullpen has been a bit of an issue of late, so when Eovaldi failed to complete five innings, it was easy to worry. Instead, Chasen Shreve came in, stuck out all four men he faced, Justin Wilson retired both men he faced, then Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller did what they do to close things out. Betances allowed a soft single and got four outs total, three on strikeouts. Miller retired the side on nine pitches in the ninth for his 15th save in 15 chances. He’s allowed five hits in 22.1 innings this year. One base-runner and eight strikeouts in 4.1 shutout innings for the bullpen overall. That’ll do.
• Leftovers: The Yankees scored an insurance run in the eighth on an error (Marcus Semien), a stolen base (Mark Teixeira!), a ground out (McCann), and a single (Beltran) … Ramon Flores went 0-for-4 in his MLB debut but did see 19 pitches and play some great defense, with one outfield assist (video) and one diving catch (video) … Headley laid down basically the best bunt in MLB history to beat the shift in the seventh (video) … Headley had three hits and Beltran had two.

Here’s the box score, video highlights, updated standings, Bullpen Workload page, and Announcer Standings page. The Yankees and Athletics will wrap up this four-game series on Sunday afternoon — hooray no 10pm ET start! — when Adam Warren and Jesse Chavez square off.