*Photo from the Wall Street Journal*
27 up, 27 down. Flawlessness. Giancarlo Stanton drove in 3 runs, Domingo German made history, and the New York Yankees defeated the Oakland Athletics with a 11-0 victory on Wednesday night in Oakland.
While the Yankees offense was plenty productive, the story of the night was German. He pitched a perfect game, the first time it has happened in the majors since Felix Hernandez in 2012 and the 24th in major league history. He's also the 4th Yankee pitcher to throw a perfect game.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of German that "When he gets rolling like that, he's just so fun to watch at his craft. He's so good at commanding all of his pitches. His curveball was great tonight. But because his changeup and his fastball were good, too, it made that curveball even more special. I was actually pretty calm over there. Again, just enjoying watching him kind of paint a masterpiece."
Stanton started the scoring for the Yankees in the 4th inning, bashing a solo home run to make it 1-0. The Yankees made it 7-0 after 5 innings. The 6 run 5th inning came from a Kyle Higashioka RBI double, RBI singles from Anthony Volpe and DJ Lemahieu, a two run single from Stanton, and an RBI single from Isiah Kiner-Falefa.
Come the 7th inning, the Yankees made the score 8-0 on a Josh Donaldson sac fly that scored Oswaldo Cabrera. In the 9th, Anthony Rizzo scored on a fielders choice to make it 9-0. Donaldson then scored Cabrera again with an RBI double to make it 10-0. The final then became 11-0 when Harrison Bader scored on a groundout from Kiner-Falefa.
Retiring all 27 batters for the perfect game, German improved to 5-5 on the season as a result. He struck out 9 Oakland hitters to reach the historical achievement. Prior to this game, German was winless in his last 6 starts against the A's and had never thrown a complete game in the major leagues.
Yankees catcher Kyle Higashioka said of catching the perfect game that "Honestly, I just felt like I was a passenger for this one. Just don't miss the ball, and don't mess it up. Domingo was definitely driving the ship, and he had a plan. I mean, we both had a plan, but he had just ultimate confidence in his stuff."
JP Sears started and allowed 7 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks over 4 innings for the Athletics. Shintaro Fujinami pitched two scoreless innings, while Yacksel Rios allowed a run. Austin Pruitt pitched two scoreless innings while Sam Long allowed 3 runs in the 9th inning.
Oakland manager Mark Kotsay said that "The kid did an amazing job of keeping us off balance all night and we didn’t do a good job of making the adjustment. He threw strikes. He pounded the zone, obviously. You don’t not throw strikes and go nine innings without a baserunner. Overall, offensively, our approach wasn’t great. We didn’t make any adjustments tonight to what he was doing."
Up next, the series concludes on Thursday afternoon. The Yankees give the start to Clarke Schmidt, while James Kaprielian starts for the Athletics.
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