Yankees win thriller, beat A’s on error in 14th

NEW YORK: A dramatic rally in the 13th inning helped the New York Yankees to a thrilling 10-9 victory Saturday over the Oakland Athletics to maintain its slender one game lead in the AL East over Baltimore.
In a game that included a bruising hit at home plate, stellar defensive plays and even a bit of rain, the Yankees got a bit of luck to outlast the A’s.
Down 9-5 in the 13th, the Yankees won for just the second time in team history after trailing by at least four runs in extra innings. Raul Ibanez hit his second home run of the game during the 13th inning, before the Yankees took advantage of first baseman Brandon Moss’ two-out error in the 14th to claim an unlikely win.
Oakland began the day with a 3 1-2 game lead over Los Angeles for the second AL wild-card spot. The A’s still have an edge, but blew a huge opportunity and lost for the fifth time in six games.
Moments after pinch runner Melky Mesa — in his big league debut — missed third base and had to retreat, the Yankees found another way to win. Moss let a bases-loaded grounder by Eduardo Nunez skip off his glove, allowing Ichiro Suzuki score and ending a game that took 5 hours, 43 minutes.
Johnny Gomes, Yoenis Cespedes and Chris Carter homered in the 13th, putting the A’s ahead. New York rallied in the bottom half, scoring runs on a wild pitch and Nunez’s sacrifice fly before Ibanez hit a tying, two-run drive off Pat Neshek.
In Boston, Jim Thome hit a go-ahead double in the 12th in his first game in nearly two months as Baltimore stretched its extra-inning win streak to 16 games, beating the Boston Red Sox 9-6.
It was the Orioles sixth win in a row and it remains only one game back of the AL East-leading New York Yankees.
Thome had been out since July 31 until Friday with a herniated disk in his neck, but he showed no sign of discomfort as he drove in the winning runs to keep the Orioles in the hunt for the divisional title.
In the late game, Dan Haren earned his first win at home in more than a month, Mark Trumbo capped a four-run first inning with a two-run single and the Los Angeles Angels beat the White Sox 4-2, trimming Chicago’s AL Central lead to a half-game over Detroit.
The Angels have won six of nine and are 2 1/2 games behind Oakland for the second AL wild card.
In other AL games the Detroit Tigers thrashed the Minnesota Twins 8-0 to remain in the AL Central race, the Kansas City Royals beat the Cleveland Indians 5-3, Tampa Bay humbled Toronto 11-3, and the Seattle Mariners were 1-0 winners over the Texas Rangers.
In the NL the Cincinnati Reds made good on their second chance to win the NL Central title by beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-0, Freddie Freeman hit a three-run homer in the Atlanta Braves 8-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies, the St. Louis Cardinals bolstered its bid for another playoff appearance toppling the Chicago Cubs 5-4 in 10 innings and the Arizona Diamondbacks edged out the Colorado Rockies 8-7.
In other NL games, the Madison Bumgarner pitched San Francisco to its second NL West title in three years by beating the San Diego Padres 8-4, Gio Gonzalez became the majors’ first 20-game winner in 2012 in the Washington Nationals 10-4 rout of the Milwaukee Brewers, the N.Y. Mets survived a spirited ninth inning rally by the Florida Marlins to hold on 4-3, and Jason Castro hit a three-run homer in the Houston Astros 4-1 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates.