Austin, Gray fuel the Yankees in blowout win over KC

While the Yankees offense showed up for the second straight day, the story of today’s game was Sonny Gray. Gray delivered his best performance as a Yankee, throwing eight innings of one run ball to lead the Yanks in their series-clinching 10-1 win over the Royals. With the win, the Yankees have now won eight straight series for the first time since 1998 and are 24-6 in their last 30 games.

Photo Credit: John Sleezer

Sonny Gray’s dominant outing began with him retiring the first 14 Royals he faced. He was efficient and in command all day. This was only the second time in 20 starts as a Yankee that Gray lasted eight innings, and the fifth time he has allowed one earned run or fewer. The big change for the 28-year-old righty was his control. On the day, 67% of his 92 pitches were in the strike zone. After struggling mightily all year, Gray needed a start like this to hopefully get him going.

Photo Credit: Charlie Riedel/AP Photo

Offensively, the Yanks went down quietly their first time through the order against Royals starter Eric Skoglund, but got on the board with a bang in the fourth on Tyler Austin’s seventh home run of the season. Miguel Andujar followed that up with a triple to the left field gap and was driven in by Austin Romine on a broken-bat single putting the Bombers up 3-0. This was a game where the Yankees got contributions up-and-down their lineup, as five different players had at least two hits.

New York put up three more runs in the fifth with Aaron Hicks hitting the Yankees’ second triple of the afternoon and scoring Giancarlo Stanton in the process. Hicks had a big weekend in Kansas City, going 7-12 with two RBI.

The other two runs came off the bat of Tyler Austin, who launched his second home run of the day, and third of the week. With Greg Bird due back in a week or so, the Yankees are going to have a very difficult decision to make at first base thanks to Austin’s recent showing.

The Yanks tacked on four more runs in the eighth and ninth, thanks in large part to the bats of Miguel Andujar and Austin Romine. The two of them each had three hits on the day and hit back-to-back solo home runs in the ninth to help the Yanks put a 10 spot on the board. The Yanks scored 18 runs over the last two nights after a lackluster showing in Friday's 5-2 loss.

It wasn’t until the eighth inning that Gray ran into trouble, surrendering two hits, a walk and finally allowing a run to score on a two-out single by Jon Jay. For the day, Gray allowed four hits, one walk, while striking out five Royals. A.J. Cole came in and fired a one-two-three ninth inning to finish off the game and get the Yankees to 30-13 on the season in a tie atop the AL East with the Boston Red Sox.

Box Score:

Winning Pitcher: Sonny Gray (3-3, 5.48 ERA)

Losing Pitcher: Eric Skoglund (1-4, 6.15 ERA)

NYY:

HR: Austin 2 (8), Andujar (4), Romine (1)

RBI: Austin 4 (23), Romine 2 (9), Hicks (17), Gardner (14), Andujar (16)
Notables: Stanton: 2-5, Hicks: 2-4, Austin: 2-4, Andujar: 3-5, Romine: 3-5

KC:

RBI: Jon Jay (10)

Notable: Hunter Dozier: 2-3

Looking Ahead:

The Yankees head down to Arlington for a three-game series with the struggling Texas Rangers. Tomorrow’s scheduled starters are Masahiro Tanaka for the Bombers and Bartolo “Big Sexy” Colon for Texas. Colon has been the Rangers best starter in the early going, posting a 2-1 record and 2.83 ERA. First pitch is scheduled for 8:05pm on WPIX and MLBN.

Article by: Jake Graziano

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