New York Yankees 10, Oakland Athletics 0: Bombers blast off by the Bay

On Friday night, the Yankees ' bats didn't break out until the 10th inning. Tonight, however, they took the initiative far sooner, plating a half-dozen in the first three frames against JP Sears and the Athletics. From there they kept hammering their way to a 10-0 rout. Anthony Volpe and Giancarlo Stanton ended their respective home run droughts, Aaron Judge hit his 54th bomb of the year, and Carlos Rodón handled the Oakland lineup with aplomb, firing six scoreless innings for the win.

The Yankees wasted no time putting the heat on their former teammate, loading the bases against Sears with nobody out in the first. Stanton came up with a chance to put a crooked number on the scoreboard right away, but instead grounded into a 5-4-3 double play. Torres scored on the play for a 1-0 Yankees lead, but Jasson Domínguez still had an opportunity to bring home Juan Soto. Weaker from the right side, Domínguez nevertheless laced a 105.8-mph grounder through the left side to make good on the rally and give the Yanks an immediate multi-run advantage.

The next inning, Volpe hit a ball 67 feet for a home run! ...Well, I kid. The YES broadcast erroneously had the drive at 67 feet before we got the correction. It was an ironic time for the distance tracker to break because in reality, Volpe clubbed a fastball from Sears a whopping 421 feet to left center field for the longest home run of his career.

This mighty clout was Volpe's 12th homer of the year and his first home run since August 2nd against Toronto. It staked the Yankees to a three-run lead, but the Yankees would soon show they weren't yet satisfied—and a second hitter would bust out of his power outage.

In the third, Soto led off with a strange bloop single that Nick Allen nearly caught behind third base. Judge kept the line moving with a knock of his own on the next pitch before Stanton strode to the plate. He may have had a bad taste in his mouth after grounding into that bases-loaded twin killing in the first, because he unleashed a malicious hack on the first pitch and sent the ball flying into the Oakland sky to cleanse his palate.

That missile was Stanton's first home run since September 2nd in Arlington, and his 26th overall. He also broke a tie with Hall of Famer Mike Piazza, as his 428th career homer gave him sole possession of 51st all-time in MLB history. The Yankees had made a bombastic statement against Sears, who had previously tossed six scoreless against them back in April.

Rodón, who pitched seven shutout in that same April contest, didn't have his best stuff early, but kept Oakland's contact soft and on the ground. Only one free pass was issued, and the A's mustered just five hits. Rodón got his first 1-2-3 inning in the fifth before retiring the side in order again the following frame to finish the night with six goose eggs on the scoreboard. His ERA is back below 4.00 for the first time since June, and his second-half ERA is now down to a tidy 2.87.

In the seventh, with Brandon Bielak on the mound for Oakland, Aaron Judge came up to the plate. Maybe you've heard about the recent exploits of Shohei Ohtani, but he's come within one homer of Judge's league-leading total. Suddenly it seemed like anyone's guess for which superstar would finish with the MLB lead in home runs. But on Bielak's first pitch of the inning, Judge pounced to extend his lead on Ohtani back to two.

Home run No. 54 was a Bay Area blast for the Linden native, who was once drafted by the A's out of high school and has fond memories of the Coliseum. The homer gave the Yankees a 7-0 lead. They would tack on three more runs in the inning from a Volpe RBI fielder's choice and a two-run single by Gleyber Torres to make it 10-0. That is where the score stood for the rest of the game, as Mark Leiter Jr. and Tim Mayza took it the rest of the way for win No. 91 on the season.

With Baltimore's extra-inning loss to Detroit coming earlier in the evening, the Yankees once again gained a full game in the division (moving back to five ahead), thus closing the magic number for the AL East crown to three. After several months where both the Yanks and O's have mostly blinked at the chance to gain important divisional ground, New York has finally taken advantage of the Birds' struggles this month. Nothing is final, especially this season, but it looks increasingly probable that the Yankees will reclaim the AL East.

Tomorrow afternoon the Yankees will try for the sweep in what figures to be their final game in Oakland after 56 years of visits , barring something unforeseen. Luis Gil will toe that Oakland Coliseum slab against right-handed rookie Joey Estes. First pitch is set for 4:07pm EDT on YES.