Suddenly, the Yankees’ rotation is performing as the club expected.
Unsurprisingly, a string of victories has followed.
Masahiro Tanaka was the latest starter to produce, shaking off consecutive poor outings in a 5-1 victory over the A’s on Saturday afternoon in front of 26,356 at O.co Coliseum. Tanaka became the fourth consecutive Yankees starter to allow one run. In those four games, Nathan Eovaldi, Ivan Nova, CC Sabathia and Tanaka have given up only 13 hits and three walks in 25 innings, striking out 20. They have a 1.44 ERA in the four games.
The Yankees (20-22) extended their winning streak to a season-high four games (and 11 of 16) and will go for a four-game sweep Sunday afternoon against the A’s (19-25), who entered the series with four straight victories but have played poorly in the first three games.
Tanaka (2-0, 3.24), who allowed 10 runs in 12 innings in his previous two outings, each time pitching on four days’ rest, gave up one run and five hits in seven innings on five days’ rest. The four-run cushion allowed Joe Girardi to rest his big three – Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman – for a second straight game. The Yankees, who had eight hits, did the majority of their damage against A’s left-hander Sean Manaea in a four-run fourth that snapped a scoreless tie. Manaea held the Yankees without a hit until the fourth, when Starlin Castro’s infield single helped open the floodgates. He allowed five runs and six hits in 62/3 innings.
Jacoby Ellsbury walked, Castro reached on his infield single and Mark Teixeira, 10-for-62 to that point this month, walked to load the bases with none out in the fourth.
Carlos Beltran, who had three RBIs in each of the previous two games, lined an RBI single off the glove of shortstop Marcus Semien and Aaron Hicks’ sacrifice fly to left made it 2-0. With two outs, Rob Refsnyder – making his first big league start of the season – fought off three full-count pitches before hitting a two-run double that one-hopped the wall in right-centre to make it 4-0.
That capped a 10-pitch at-bat. Ronald Torreyes, starting at shortstop for Didi Gregorius, singled and scored on Castro’s two-out double in the seventh to make it 5-1. Tanaka pitched out of two bases-loaded jams.
With one out in the third, Max Muncy reached on an infield single, Coco Crisp singled to centre and Billy Burns beat out a perfectly placed bunt to the first-base side of the mound. Tanaka then struck out Danny Valencia on three pitches and got Khris Davis to ground to third.
The A’s loaded the bases with one out in the fifth on two walks and Muncy’s single and again brought No. 3 hitter Valencia to the plate. His sacrifice fly to centre made it 4-1, but Tanaka struck out Davis to end the inning.

RESULTS

Kansas City 2 Chicago White Sox 1
Minnesota 5 Toronto 3
Atlanta 2 Philadelphia 0
Boston 9 Cleveland 1
Colorado 5 Pittsburgh 1
NY Yankees 5 Oakland 1
St. Louis 6 Arizona 2
Detroit 5 Tampa Bay 4
NY Mets 5 Milwaukee 4
Seattle 4 Cincinnati 0
San Francisco 5 Chicago Cubs 3
Texas 2 Houston 1
Miami 3 Washington 2
Baltimore 3 LA Angels 1
San Diego 3 LA Dodgers 2 (11 innings)