Grand ol’ time

After going 3-for-23 with RISP and stranding 19 runners over the first two games of this series, the Yanks remembered they were playing the A’s today and absolutely routed Oakland, 22-9. Not only did the Yanks whoop ass but they also became the first team in the history of MLB to hit three grand slams in one game.

Russell Martin had arguably the greatest game of his life, going a career-high 5-for-5 with the second grand slam, a solo homer, two singles and a double that just missed being a homer. He also drove in a career-best six runs and scored thrice. For some perspective on the kind of season he’s having: he had one multi-homer game in 667 games with the Dodgers but has four in 101 games with the Yanks this season.

Cano had the first grand slam and went 2-for-4 with five RBI, he now has 93 on the season. Grandy went 2-for-4 with the final slam, scored four times and drove in five runs; he now has 103 RBI on the year.

Lost in all the hoopla of the grand slams was Derek Jeter was batting .300 for one at-bat. He went 3-for-6 with a triple, scored twice and drove in a run, and passed Rickey Henderson for sole possession of 21st place on the all-time hits list (3,058 total). He is also now tied with Grandy for the second most hits on the team (132). Captain struck out in his final plate appearance so his average is now .299, but remember this guy was sitting at .260 on June 13. He went on the DL in mid-June with 12 extra-base hits in 262 at-bats but now has 15 in 179 at-bats since returning.

Jeter now has 10 three-hit games this season, including six this month. Since coming off the DL he is hitting .320/.373/.393 against right-handed pitching, which he couldn’t hit to save his life earlier this year. In other words: he’s been hot as a bastard recently.

Tex drove in a pair of runs and scored, but is just 2 for his last 19. Eddie Nunez went 3-for-5, scored twice and drove in a run, while Gardy went 1-for-4 with two runs scored and an RBI. A-Rod went 2-for-4 and scored three times while Andruw Jones added a solo homer for good measure.

The Yanks batted around in four straight innings (fifth through the eighth), and over that time 40 Yankees came to the plate while A’s pitchers recorded consecutive outs just once. Oakland pitchers issued 13 free passes over that span; only three teams have that many in a game this season.

As if the offensive explosion wasn’t crazy enough, Jorge Posada played second base in the ninth inning. His play to end the game was…fitting. The last time he played second base was in 1991 at Oneonta in the New York-Penn League.

The bad:

Philthy lasted just 2 2/3 innings and gave up six runs on seven hits. He also needed 78 pitches (48 going for strikes) to get that far. The good news is that he struck out five batters without giving up a walk.

The last two times Hughes has faced the A’s the Yanks scored 17 and 22 runs, he failed to qualify for the win each time.

The bullpen did OK, but it’s hard not to when the offense explodes like that. Boone Logan, who got the win, was the highlight; he faced four batters and struck ’em all out.

More stats:

The last time they scored 22 runs came on June 19, 2000 in a 22-1 win against the Red Sox…the Yanks now lead all of MLB with seven grand slams…they now have six games of 13+ runs this season…Yankee players have had five hits in a game four times this season (Jeter 2, Cano and Martin), which is tied for second most in a season (’84 Yanks had six)…Jones became the eighth Yankee this season with double-digit homers…Jeter also passed Jimmie Foxx for 20th place on the all-time runs list with his 1,753rd run…It was a record for runs allowed by Oakland…A’s pitchers used exactly 200 pitches through seven innings.