Yankees produce two five-run innings in rout of Athletics

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Late Friday afternoon, a smiling Luis Severino said he was “excited” to face the Yankees, the team that took him in the international draft in December 2011 and with whom he pitched through the 2023 season.

That excitement lasted all of one inning.

After Severino retired his former club in order in the first, the Yankees ambushed him in the second on Sunday afternoon, sending 10 to the plate in a five-run inning that allowed them to cruise to a series-clinching 12-2 victory over the Athletics in front of a sellout crowd of 12,224 at Sutter Health Park.

It was a solid rebound victory for the Yankees (23-17), who had 15 hits — four by Aaron Judge, whose average soared to .409 — after Saturday's bullpen implosion.

They batted around twice in a game that was decided by the middle innings, again sending 10 to the plate in a five-run fifth that featured Ben Rice’s first career grand slam.

“We do a good job of flushing the tough losses, and even some of our wins,” Judge said. “It’s ‘Hey, move on to the next game.’ We understand how important these games are early on, especially in our division.”

Judge notched his third four-hit game of the season and the 13th of his career, striking out swinging against Severino in the first inning but going 4-for-5 with a double to up his OPS to 1.273.

“[Another] day at the office,” Rice said with a laugh.

According to baseball researcher Sarah Langs, Judge has the fourth-highest batting average with at least 14 home runs in his team’s first 40 games, trailing Mickey Mantle (.430) in 1956, Jimmie Foxx (.425) in 1932 and Manny Ramirez (.425) in 2001.

The rightfielder, who has 39 RBIs, also made a fully laid-out diving catch of Jacob Wilson’s liner in the fifth, nearly doubling off former teammate Gio Urshela in the process.

“Still not where we want to be, but we’re improving,” Judge said with a smile of how “locked in” he feels at the plate.

Spoiler alert: Judge, since his 52-homer rookie season, has never publicly copped to feeling locked in and never will.

“There’s always room for improvement,” he said. “That’s just a constant chase in the game that we play. But as long as we keep winning and staying in first place, I’ll be happy.”

Paul Goldschmidt, a seven-time All-Star and former NL MVP coming off the worst season of his career, doubled three times, raising his average to .349 and OPS to .898. Jasson Dominguez, who had his first career three-homer game in Friday night’s 10-2 victory, added two hits, as did Anthony Volpe.

The Yankees scored 29 runs in the three-game series and had 38 hits, including eight homers, a triple and 11 doubles.

“Just really good at-bats from our offense this entire series,” Aaron Boone said. “We’ve had our share of tough losses here to start the year, and I feel like at every turn we’ve really bounced back well the next day.”

Severino, 1-3 but with a 3.62 ERA coming in, was charged with eight runs and allowed nine hits and two walks in four innings-plus. The righthander, who went 54-37 with a 3.79 ERA for the Yankees from 2015-23, allowed the first two batters to reach in the fifth before being removed for righthander Mitch Spence, who gave up Rice’s towering 398-foot grand slam to right on a 3-and-1, 91-mph cutter, the third straight cutter of the at-bat.

“Yeah, I was looking cutter,” Rice said, laughing again.

The two-out drive, Rice's ninth homer of the season, made it 10-1, and Goldschmidt’s RBI double later in the inning gave the Yankees an 11-1 lead.

Lefthander Ryan Yarbrough, who signed a major-league contract with the Yankees on March 24 — a day after exercising an opt-out with the Blue Jays — and has been effective as a long man this season in an under-the-radar role, picked up the victory in his second start of the year, and likely not his last. The soft-throwing 6-5 sidearmer allowed two runs, six hits and a walk in five innings, mostly keeping the A’s (21-20) off balance with an array of pitches that featured everything from a sweeper that clocked in at 70 mph to a sinker that topped out at 90 mph, and everything in between.

“A lot of soft contact,” Yarbrough said. “It was good just keeping guys off balance and in between certain things. Trying to be efficient. Especially when we’re scoring like that, you want to get the guys back in as soon as possible.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.