Yankees’ Clarke Schmidt aims for more zeros vs. struggling A’s

A week ago, Clarke Schmidt was unhittable for seven innings, and the lone obstacle was a rising pitch count.

The New York Yankees are curious to see what the follow up to Schmidt’s flirtation with history looks like when the emerging right-hander faces the visiting Athletics on Saturday afternoon.

New York’s pitching has a major-league-best 3.18 ERA in the past 58 games, and the Yankees recorded their ninth shutout in a 3-0 win in the series opener on Friday. Will Warren pitched five innings of two-hit ball and Jazz Chisholm Jr. homered ahead of RBI singles by Cody Bellinger and DJ LeMahieu.

Schmidt (4-3, 2.84 ERA) is pitching on two extra days of rest after throwing 103 pitches in New York’s 9-0 win over the Baltimore Orioles on June 21. Despite allowing no hits and just two walks, he was unable to go beyond the seventh because of a 27-pitch first inning and a 21-pitch final inning.

“Just treat it like the last one, I think,” Schmidt said of facing the A’s. “I think it’s easy to buy into the, ‘Oh, I just threw really well and I’m throwing the ball well.’ You can kind of feed into your own success a little bit.

“So for me, I try to block that out and continue to go compete and play with a chip on my shoulder and understand that nothing is given in this game. For me, I’m preparing like it was the outing before and the previous outings.”

The dominant seven innings gave him a career-high 25 1/3-inning scoreless streak, the third longest by a Yankee since 1961. Hall of Famer Catfish Hunter pitched 26 straight scoreless innings in 1975, and Gerrit Cole did not allow a run for 25 2/3 innings in 2023.

“Last year and the previous years I just have so much better feel of what I’m trying to do out there and I’m immersing myself more in the chess game of baseball and pitch selection and stuff like that rather than here’s my best stuff, see-what-you-can-do mentality, and I think that has really benefited me,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt is 3-1 with a 5.14 ERA in four career starts against the A’s, who will pitch JP Sears (5-7, 5.44) on Saturday. Sears is 1-5 with an 8.75 ERA in his past eight starts and has allowed 13 homers.

Sears last pitched in a 3-0 home loss to the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday, when he allowed three runs on seven hits in five innings.

Sears is 0-4 with a 5.74 ERA in six career starts against the Yankees, who dealt him to the A’s at the 2022 trade deadline for Frankie Montas and Lou Trivino. He got a no-decision vs. New York on May 10 after throwing five innings of one-run ball.

The A’s are trying to avoid getting blanked for the third straight game, having finished with three hits in back-to-back contests. Jacob Wilson struck out twice and went 0-for-4 on Friday, leaving the star rookie shortstop in a 7-for-41 (.171) slump.

“The bat-to-ball skills have always been there,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said of Wilson, who is still hitting .341, second in the big leagues. “This is the type of hitter he was in college. He did it in the minor leagues pretty consistently for the short time he was there, so it’s not surprising that he’s getting his hits. … The rate he’s getting his hits is what’s a little surprising.”

–Field Level Media