After split with A's, Yankees aim to 'step it up'

OAKLAND -- After taking the first two games of this weekend's series at the Oakland Coliseum, the Yankees were hoping for a better outcome against the A’s than a four-game split. They were also hoping their blistering offensive breakout in the opener was the beginning of a trend during a West Coast tour against two struggling teams.

But instead, the Yanks will head to Anaheim still searching for more life from their bats.

A first glance at the four-game set in Oakland suggests this was an acceptable series: two wins, two losses and despite a 4-1 loss Sunday, the Yankees outscored the A’s, 19-13. But Thursday's opener -- a 13-4 landslide win for New York -- skewed reality quite a bit. The Yankees scored six runs in the final three games of this series, largely against A’s pitchers with some of the more bloated ERAs in the American League.

“The last 22-plus hours have not been very good for us offensively,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We’ve got to do a better job, and we have to turn the page on this one. We have a big series starting and we’ve got to get after it and really get some guys rolling.”

There are no “sure things” in Major League Baseball, especially when good teams play non-contenders this late in the season. Clubs out of the race are still capable of finding a groove, and the Yankees were guaranteed nothing when they headed out to play the AL West’s fourth- and fifth-place teams.

But losing the final two games after taking the first two has to be disappointing for a Yankees team that arrived in the Bay Area feeling good about a two-game sweep of the Mets, which soon turned into a five-game winning streak with victories Thursday and Friday in Oakland. The Yanks now head to Anaheim to play the Angels, who just completed a three-game sweep in Toronto against the contending Blue Jays -- another example supporting the theory that anything that can happen in baseball over the course of a 162-game season.

Boone dismissed the suggestion that it might be harder to find that extra gear when playing some of the lesser teams during an August that is always a slog for most teams, good and bad.

“There are certain moments in the season, there are certain games in the season that you have a natural built-in whatever it may be that kind of gets you there anyway,” Boone said. “This time of the year ... we’re trying to win a division. And we’re getting down to stretch time now.

“We’ve got to make sure we bring it every single day. I don’t think that was the issue. We unfortunately just got shut down these last 23 hours. We have to do a better job there. We have a division to try and win and we have to put our best foot forward.”

Sunday’s game presented missed opportunities on the basepaths and a quiet day for slugger Aaron Judge, whose home run total remained at 49 the past two days.

The Yankees scored their lone run in the fifth inning, when Aaron Hicks -- making his first start in center field in a week -- singled and scored on Kyle Higashioka’s single to center. The next-best scoring opportunity arrived in the sixth, when Giancarlo Stanton laced a one-out single to left off Adrián Martínez.

But things unraveled quickly from there. Anthony Rizzo nubbed a shift-beating hit to left that would have been a double, but instead, he stayed at first after slipping and falling rounding the bag. The inning ended when DJ LeMahieu grounded into a double play.

“Today, we couldn't really get anything going against their starter, Martínez,” Judge said. “Then, the bullpen guys came in and we still couldn’t really start a rally with a base hit or a walk. We just didn’t get it done today.”

Even with the disappointing end to the A’s series, the bigger picture provides a sunnier outlook. The Yankees are 5-2 in their past seven games and are holding steady in the AL East with a 7 1/2-game lead over the second-place Rays. The Yanks lost more footing to the Astros, however, for the AL’s best record -- Houston avoided a sweep with a win Sunday over Baltimore and now has a 3 1/2-game advantage over New York.

Now, the Yankees hope the end of the toughest month on the baseball calendar also represents the end of whatever is going wrong for them at the plate.

“The other night, we had about 20 hits, so I don’t think we’re too far off,” Judge said. “This is the time of the year when it’s kind of a grind. Everyone knows that. Now, we have to step it up in Anaheim.”