Virtual Baseball: Jet-Lagged Yanks Fall in Oakland. Stanton Taking Train.

A jet-lagged Yankees team staggered into Oakland today and saw its Virtual Reality winning streak come to an end.  Playing as though they were still dead drunk in first class, the Yanks committed three errors, and lost 3-2 to the Athletics in their weird, spooky, Thunderdome-like stadium.

Gerrit Cole took the loss, though the blame fell mostly on catcher Gary Sanchez.  While Sanchez hit two tape-measure home runs into the vastness of Oakland-Alameda County Colossal Coliseum, his back-to-back passed balls let two runs score in the sixth inning, tagging Cole with the loss.

Asked if this was a sign that his trouble handling pitches was back, Sanchez told reporters, "Go fuck yourselves!  I was exactly at par today:  two runs in, two runs out."

The Yanks dropped to 9-5 on a less-than-good Friday.

Meanwhile, the increasingly eccentric slugger Giancarlo Stanton, who has to play a game this season, refused to take the team plane to Oakland, saying that he wanted to shrink his carbon footprint.

Stanton took Amtrak instead, citing its carbon bang-for-buck, and also the train service's reputation for outstanding food.  He is expected to arrive in Oakland by Sunday, the day of the team's last game there.