Homer (Bailey) and the homers get A’s win over those Yankees

OAKLAND — They’re still the Yankees, the team with the pinstripes, with the monuments, with the 27 World Series titles, with the 1960s musical comedy about their dominance, “Damn Yankees,” when only the devil could beat them.

It doesn’t matter how they are doing at the any given time — and at this given time, lordy, the Yanks own the best record in the major leagues — the name resonates, the intensity percolates.

“Anytime you play a team like that,” Homer Bailey, the Athletics pitcher said, “it brings a lot of energy to the field. It’s not just who they are as an organization, but who they are this year — one of the better teams in baseball, if not with the best record in the game. It gets you up, makes it fun.”

Bailey was a reason Tuesday night, in the opener of a three-game series at the Coliseum, the Athletics had more fun than the Yankees, winning 6-2.

“I thought he was great,” Oakland manager Bob Melvin said of Bailey. 

He certainly was persistent. The Yankees make an opposing pitcher work. “They just foul so many balls off,” said Melvin. “The next thing, you’re in an uncomfortable pitch count.”

Yet not in an uncomfortable place on the scoreboard.

Sure, for a moment there, when Gary Sanchez, the third Yankee to come to the plate in the first inning, hit one into the seats, you’re thinking “Bronx Bombers” and all that history.

But like that, the A’s, Matt Olson, with a man on, and Mark Canha hit their own first-inning homers, and Homer and the A’s were back in front.

Which, reminded Melvin, was oh so important, given the opposition and the circumstances.

“The first time we play them this year,” said Melvin, “you can’t help but think back to the last time you played them.”

That would be the 2018 American League Wild card game, a 7-2 New York win that ended Oakland’s season. 

“A bunch of Yankee fans here,” said Melvin about the balance or imbalance of the 21,471 fans Tuesday night. “A raucous crowd. The whole bit. Sanchez gets them out in a hurry. Now we have to answer.

“I think the Olson home run was huge. Then Canha follows it up. You want to start well at home, knowing we play them six times the next 12 games or so. It was nice to get the first game.”

It was imperative. The Yankees were playing as if they had Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle. They were 15-4 in August (now 15-5, of course), had hit 47 home runs in those 19 games and were averaging 5.93 runs a game, the highest in 12 years.

But Bailey, who the A’s obtained in a trade from Kansas City on July 14 — that deal certainly worked — checked all the numbers and took the challenge without blinking. His best pitch is the splitter, the split-finger fastball, an off-speed offering that drops.

“I just kept staying with it,” said Bailey. And the Yankees stayed after it in a manner. “They didn’t hit a ball hard, other than the homer," said Homer.

They did keep making contact, if only with those fouls, so after 5.2 innings (which doesn’t seem like much) and 108 pitches (which is a lot) Bailey was relieved. 

“I just tried to get them out,” said Bailey, who succeeded often enough to get his 11th win. “Then let the offense do what they’ve been doing all year. I tried to make them put the ball in play. I had a few strikeouts, but with this defense it’s not that important.”

Bailey had problems throwing the splitter until July. ”I finally had a better understanding of the pressure points,” he said about gripping the ball. “It’s been working really well.”

Said Melvin, “He pairs it up with the fastball. As the game goes along, he gets better and better.”

Bailey has been a member of the A’s fewer than five weeks, but he’s all in, to borrow a phrase.

  “This is a club that believes it can play with anybody,” said Bailey, “and we’re showing it.”