
NEW YORK – About the only thing that went wrong for Kendall Graveman on Wednesday night was his bat selection.
Considering he hadn’t stepped into the batter’s box in seven years, the A’s right-hander can be forgiven.
When the A’s lost their designated hitter following a series of lineup changes resulting from Danny Valencia’s hamstring injury, Graveman grabbed one of Josh Phegley’s bats and walked to the plate with two runners aboard in the fifth inning to face Yankees right-hander Nathan Eovaldi.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
Graveman, the A’s first starter to hit in an American League game since Ken Holtzman in 1975, actually fouled off a pitch but went down swinging on three pitches.
“Maybe I had too heavy a bat,” he said jokingly. “Phegley handed me his bat, maybe I should have used (Billy) Burns’.”
It was on the mound where Graveman really had his act together. Making his first career start at Yankee Stadium, he sidestepped trouble in the first inning and pitched into the seventh, notching his first win in the majors since July 4, when he marked that holiday by beating Seattle 2-0.
[INSTANT REPLAY: Graveman strikes out career-high eight, A's win fourth straight]
Athletics
Find the latest Athletics news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Bay Area and California.
It could have unraveled early Wednesday.
Graveman walked two in a 29-pitch first and had the bases loaded with two outs. But he froze Alex Rodriguez with a fastball at the knees for a called third strike and kept the home team off the scoreboard.
“That pitch he threw to A-Rod in the first inning kind of set the tone for the rest of the game,” reliever Marc Rzepczynski said.
But because he said his fastball wasn’t helping him much of the night, Graveman leaned heavily on a cutter-curve ball combo that worked well. That helped him get outs and ensure he was still in the game when his turn in the batting order came up in the top of the fifth.
Graveman said it was his first at-bat in any game since 2009, when he was a senior at Benjamin Russell High School in Alexander City, Ala.
“I tell people I was a .400 hitter in high school,” Graveman said. “I hit .100 as a freshman, .100 as a sophomore … and I added them up.”
But there’s nothing to laugh about when it comes to the A’s pitching to start this road trip. They’ve clinched a series victory already and have now won 20 of their past 28 against the Yankees. They are 5-0 on the road to start a season for the fifth time in Oakland history.
A few years ago, the A’s (8-7) couldn’t avoid the storyline of young starters taking the mound at Yankee Stadium at crumbling before the Yankees’ lineup of stars.
A key so far in this series: Graveman and Tuesday starter Eric Surkamp – their No. 4 and No. 5 guys respectively – have held their ground, holding the Yankees to a combined three runs over 12 innings pitched. And the bullpen has continued to be stellar, allowing just one run over eight innings in the series.
Chris Coghlan, who aided Rzepczynski with a terrific double play from third base in the seventh, said Yankees hitters were impressed with Graveman.
“Guys were telling me, without mentioning names on the other team, that he was throwing four pitches,” Coghlan said. “Anytime you get a pitcher who’s throwing four pitches for strikes, it’s gonna be a long night. It doesn’t matter what the name on the back of the jersey is.”