Athletics 5, Yankees 4
Cliff Pennington homered and drove in three runs as visiting Oakland salvaged the final game of a three-game series to halt New York’s seven-game winning streak.
Pennington knocked in the tiebreaking run in the sixth when he slapped a ground single to left field and Josh Donaldson narrowly beat the strong throw by New York’s Ichiro Suzuki as Oakland won for just the second time in seven games.
Grant Balfour worked a perfect ninth for his 20th save for Oakland, which possesses the second wild-card spot and has a 2 1/2-game edge over the Los Angeles Angels, who defeated the Chicago White Sox on Sunday. New York’s lead in the American League East remains at one game as second-place Baltimore also lost Sunday.
Pennington hit a two-run homer in the second off Hiroki Kuroda (14-11) to give Oakland a 3-0 lead. New York responded with a four-run fourth, beginning with Nick Swisher’s two-run homer. Raul Ibanez added a run-scoring double and a grounder by Eduardo Nunez plated the final run.
Oakland tied the contest in the fifth on a run-scoring single to right-center field by Yoenis Cespedes before Pennington came through again in the following frame. Jerry Blevins (5-1) pitched 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief for the Athletics.
GAME NOTEBOOK: Suzuki went 1-for-5 after batting .700 (14-for-20) over his previous five games. … Pennington had a .174 career average in 27 games against the Yankees before Sunday’s 3-for-4 outing. … Kuroda allowed five runs (four earned) and seven hits in 5 2/3 innings. Oakland starter A.J. Griffin gave up four runs and seven hits in 4 1/3 innings.