After an embarrassing 2-1 loss on Tuesday night, the New York Yankees look to pick themselves up off the deck in game two of their three game-set against the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday night. First pitch from Oakland Coliseum is set for 9:40 p.m. ET. Righty Domingo German (4-5, 5.10 ERA) will look to get back on track for the Yankees, while Oakland gives the ball to promising young lefty JP Sears (1-5, 4.10).
The Yankees enter as -150 favorites on the moneyline at DraftKings Sportsbook, with Oakland the +130 underdogs. The run total is set at 7.5.
Yankees-Athletics picks: Wednesday, June 28
Injury report
Out: OF Willie Calhoun (quadriceps), SP Nestor Cortes (shoulder), OF Aaron Judge (toe), RP Ryan Weber (forearm), OF Greg Allen (hip), RP Ian Hamilton (groin), RP Jonathan Loaisiga (elbow), RP Lou Trivino (elbow), SP Carlos Rodon (back), SP Frankie Montas (shoulder), RP Scott Effross (elbow), SP Luis Gil (elbow)
Out: OF Ramon Laureano (hand), INF Kevin Smith (back), RP Richard Lovelady (elbow), SP Mason Miller (elbow), RP Zach Jackson (flexor tendon), SP/RP Drew Rucinski (knee), C Manny Pina (wrist), RP Dany Jimenez (shoulder)
Starting pitchers
Domingo German vs. JP Sears
German seemed to be in the midst of a breakout year, but over the past two starts it’s all fallen apart. The righty has gotten torched for a whopping 17 runs (15 earned) with 15 hits and five homers allowed over his last 5.1 innings of work. His curveball remains an elite offering (.202 batting average against, 35.9% whiff rate) but hitters seem to have adjusted by jumping all over his fastball (.345 batting average, .818 slugging). German sits in the low 90s with his velocity, so he needs to be avoiding the heart of the plate if he hopes to set up his great secondary stuff, and he hasn’t been locating well enough of late.
Sears, on the other hand, is quietly in the midst of a breakout year amid an otherwise-dismal A’s rotation. The lefty has allowed more than two runs just once over his last eight starts, and he’s coming off of consecutive seven-inning efforts against the Philadelphia Phillies (four runs on just four hits with seven Ks) and Cleveland Guardians (two runs, four hits, eight Ks). His formula is a pretty simple one — fastballs up, sliders down, with the occasional change mixed in to righties — but he sequences well and is getting lots of swings on bad pitches (84th-percentile chase rate).
Over/Under pick
These might be the two worst offenses in baseball at the moment, as last night’s 2-1 final would attest. German has been awfully flammable of late, but his stuff looks largely the same as it did when he was tearing up the league for most of May and June, and I’m betting he bounces back a bit tonight. The Yankees have simply shown no evidence that they can hit a pitcher of Sears’ caliber — as weird as that sentence is to type — and I’m taking the under on a total that New York has fallen short of in six of their last eight.
Pick: Under 7.5
Moneyline pick
We backed the A’s as narrow underdogs in this space yesterday and cashed, and now Oakland … has even better odds on Wednesday night, with an even better starting pitcher. Unsurprisingly, I’m riding with Oakland again: You could make the argument that they actually have the advantage on the mound with the way German has looked of late, and the Yankees offense has been bad enough that they can let anyone, even if the A’s, hang around.
Pick: Athletics
