The New York Yankees achieve their first major league sweep of the season
The Bronx Bombers shrugged off their torpor, tallying 28 runs over three games against the Oakland Athletics, including Anthony Volpe’s first grand slam.
The Yankees are a lesson in self-confidence. Particularly Yankee fans. Convinced that they are indeed the best baseball team in this or any other universe, they will enter every season, every game, with the conviction that not only should they win, but that they thoroughly deserve to.
The 2023 season has so far seen the Yankees on a roller coaster of results, first climbing dizzying heights before sinking into the abyss, drowning in last place in the AL East.
However, perhaps the winds are beginning to blow in favor of the pinstripes, who on Wednesday afternoon, the middle of May mind you, achieved their first sweep of the season by beating the Oakland Athletics.
On a hot day in the Big Apple, the Bronx Bombers once again let rip the artillery, blasting three home runs. One of them was rookie Anthony Volpe’s first major league career Grand Slam. At 22 years, 12 days old, Volpe is the youngest Yankee to hit a Grand Slam at Yankee Stadium.
The Yankees beat the Athletics 11-3. Over the course of their three game series, the Yankees posted 28 total runs on the A’s.
With this result, New York has won the last eight meetings with Oakland in Yankee Stadium, taking their last six regular-season series in the process (14-4 record dating back to 2017). They also beat the A’s at Yankee Stadium 7-2 in the 2018 American League Wild Card Game.
New York is beginning to rear its head after hitting only eight home runs in an anemic span of 13 games from April 18-30, dropping eight games while scoring three runs or fewer.
The Yankees have 17 homers in their last eight games this month, including nine in their three-game series wins against Oakland.
Harrison Bader has brought life to the Yankees’ offense since he joined this season, driving in three runs on Wednesday.
Yankees players with three home runs, two triples and at least 10 RBIs in their first eight games of the season.
| Harrison Bader | 2023 |
| Bill Skowron | 1959 |
| Tommy Henry | 1950 |
| joe gordon | 1941 |
The worst team
While the Yankees are celebrating their new awakening, the A’s are in a funk that shows no sign of letting up. Their 8-30 record is the worst in franchise history through the first 38 games, and with the news that they are to move to Las Vegas they seem to be a franchise in the throes of an identity crisis.