The Yankees extended their winning streak to five games on Friday night

With their 8–2 win over the Athletics at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento on Friday night, the Yankees have now won five games in a row. They have outscored their opposition 36–6 during this decisive winning streak.

The Yankees had gone 4–10 in their previous 14 games before this winning streak. They scored a total of just 43 runs during those 14 games. The Yankees scored eight runs in this game against the Athletics after scoring just seven runs in their three game series against the Athletics at Yankee Stadium in April. The Yankees lost that series two games to one and they lost 3–2 and 1–0 in the last two games of that series. The Athletics have shown improvement since they are now just three games under .500 at 27–30 after finishing last season 10 games under .500 and the season before they finished 24 games under .500.

In this game, the Yankees hit three homers, they only had six strikeouts and the top three hitters in the lineup went 7–14 with four runs scored, four RBI and one homer. The one homer was hit by Ben Rice, who now has 17 homers this season. Rice has 17 homers in 52 games this season after having 26 homers in 138 games last season. Rice’s 17 homers are tied with teammate Aaron Judge and Byron Buxton of the Twins for the fourth most homers in Major League baseball.

The Yankees scored four runs in the first inning off of former Yankee Luis Severino, who has struggled in the first inning and has struggled pitching at home this season. In the first inning, Judge had an RBI single to center and Paul Goldschmidt had a three-run homer. Goldschmidt has a .293 average and a .923 OPS in his 22 games in May after having a .174 average and a .756 OPS in his nine games in April.

Goldschmidt is the second oldest hitter in MLB. His homer that had a 99.5 mph exit velocity made the score 4–0. He pulled the homer on a hanging sweeper and it went out of the reach of the leaping outfielder. Goldschmidt has hit really well the last few weeks.

Severino had to leave the game before second inning began. Something went wrong after one of his warm up pitches. He had right arm soreness. Due to an error by Nick Kurtz on a ball hit by Rice in the first inning, the four runs that Severino allowed were all unearned.

Kurtz, who was the AL Rookie of the Year last year after having 36 homers and 26 doubles, had a 107 mph exit velocity solo homer to center field in the bottom of the first inning to make the score 4–1 Yankees. His homer, which was one of four fly balls by the Athletics in the first inning, went entirely out of the stadium. That homer was the only run that Yankees starting pitcher Carlos Rodon allowed in his six innings pitched. Rodon threw a first pitch strike to an impressive 19 of the 22 batters he faced. Rodon has now allowed two runs combined in 11 innings in his last two starts after allowing five runs combined in eight innings in his first two starts of his season.

Trent Grisham singled in the second inning. Rice had an RBI single to center with runners on first and third to score Jose Caballero in the second inning to make the score 5–1 Yankees. He hit well against a lefty again. Caballero’s five DRS is third among AL shortstops.

Ryan McMahon hit a solo homer to right center in the third to make the score 6–1 Yankees. McMahon now has three homers in last seven games after having just three homers in his first 45 games. McMahon, who is from California, had his sixth homer of his season and his second pulled homer. It went beyond the 380 foot sign into the grassy area with no seats.

Grisham went 2–5 in this game and has gone 13–29 with three doubles and a homer in his last eight games to raise his average from .166 to .211 and his OPS from .634 to .716. He has been getting more hits recently after having bad luck on balls in play earlier in season.

Austin Wells has been striking out less and walking more this season than last season but still is struggling with a .288 OBP and a .562 OPS in 42 games.

The Athletics had first and second and no outs and did not score in the second inning off of Rodon. Judge had an RBI groundout to third to score Grisham in the fourth inning to make the score 7–1 in the fourth and then Rice had his towering solo homer to center in the seventh.

The Yankees went 4–14 with runners in scoring position in this game and the Athletics went just 1–8 with runners in scoring position. The one through four batters in the Athletics lineup in this game went 2–16. The Athletics also had two different players in the lineup hit into a double play.