Pitcher duel in the spotlight as Yankees and A's meet

A repeat of one of the strongest pitcher duels of the season will make for the big game on Saturday night when Carlos Rodon and the New York Yankees continue their away series against JP Sears and the Oakland Athletics.

The Yankees (90-64) needed a win to keep their four games ahead of the Baltimore Orioles at the top of the American League East, and thanks to a brilliant pitching performance from Gerrit Cole and a triumphant performance from the injured Juan Soto, they took a 4-2 victory in 10 innings in the series opener.

The win and the presence of the left-handed Sears could prompt Yankees manager Aaron Boone to not start Soto on Saturday for the second straight game. Boone admitted he was being “cautious” in deciding to withdraw his MVP candidate on Friday because of a knee bruise, and he offered no assurances that Soto would be more than a pinch hitter until he was 100 percent healthy again.

Soto suffered the injury when he slid into the wall while chasing a fly ball in foul territory on Thursday in Seattle. He had X-rays taken on Friday and they were negative.

“You have to be careful,” Boone said of Friday's lineup. “Everyone just felt it would be best to leave him out.”

Soto is listed as day-to-day.

New York leads the season series 3-2.

The Yankees won two of three games when the A's visited New York in April. Oakland's lone victory came in the series opener, when Sears (11-11, 4.24) and Rodon (15-9, 4.12) both left a scoreless game that turned into a 2-0 triumph for the A's.

Rodon allowed just one hit and two walks in seven innings, arguably his best outing of the season. He has been career effective against the A's, going 4-1 with a 2.68 ERA in seven starts.

Rodon didn't get much help from his offense or bullpen in the April 22 game. The only runs of the game came on a home run by Zack Gelof off Victor Gonzalez in the ninth inning.

Sears tied Rodon for six innings, allowing three hits. The former Yankee has never beaten his old team, going 0-3 with a 5.48 ERA in four starts.

The duel of left-handers features pitchers who want to improve their season's best in terms of the number of wins.

Rodon won a 15th game for the first time in his career in his last start, allowing two runs in 5 1/3 innings in a 5-2 home win over the Boston Red Sox last Sunday. The scheduled start against the A's will be his 31st of the season, tying a career high for starts.

Sears has now matched his previous two-year career win total. He made his debut with the Yankees in 2022 and went 3-0 before being traded to the A's in a six-player deal that sent Frankie Montas from Oakland to New York.

The A's (67-87) expect another deep roster for Saturday's rematch, with just five games remaining at the Oakland Coliseum before the team moves to its temporary home in Sacramento next season while it awaits construction of its new ballpark in Las Vegas.

Friday's game, the Series opener, drew one of the largest crowds of the season with 23,426 fans, and A's manager Mark Kotsay was proud that his players put up a good fight against the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner.

“Good baseball game. We played well,” he said. “We couldn't get anything done against Cole. We're not the first team that couldn't get anything done against Cole.”

-Field level media