by By Jay Cohen, AP Baseball Writer
CHICAGO – From Jacoby Ellsbury all the way down to Stephen Drew at the bottom of the lineup, the New York Yankees bashed their way to a winning road trip.
Ellsbury (Navajo) and Mark Teixeira homered against Jeff Samardzija, and the Yankees pounded the Chicago White Sox 12-3 on Sunday.
Drew added three hits and four RBIs, helping the AL East-leading Yankees close out a 6-4 trip to Minnesota, Texas and Chicago — matching a season long. Chase Headley, Didi Gregorius and Drew — the bottom three hitters in the order — combined for seven hits, six RBIs and eight runs scored.
“Outstanding job by our offense today,” manager Joe Girardi said.
New York also got a lift from Ivan Nova (4-3), who pitched six innings of five-hit ball in his third consecutive victory. Nova’s previous start on Monday at Texas was cut short by arm fatigue, a condition he contributed to his comeback from Tommy John surgery in April 2014.
Chicago was coming off an 8-2 victory on Saturday night and averaged seven runs in its previous 10 games, but Nova allowed just one run on Melky Cabrera’s RBI single in the sixth.
“Feeling good was something I was expecting after the fatigue I had last time out,” Nova said. “I got to get out because I was a little bit tired and being able to go six innings and feel good, that’s real important.”
Samardzija (8-6) was tagged for nine runs, matching a season high, and eight hits in 4 2-3 innings. Samardzija, who is eligible for free agency after the season, also walked two and hit two batters in his first start since the White Sox decided to keep the right-hander at Friday’s non-waiver trade deadline.
“I put too many guys on base for free, for sure,” Samardzija said. “Especially against a lineup like that, you’ve got to get the outs and make them put it in play.”
Ellsbury drove Samardzija’s second pitch of the game over the wall in center for his first leadoff homer of the season and No. 12 for his career. He also had a sacrifice fly in New York’s five-run fourth inning and a run-scoring groundout in the seventh.
Teixeira led off the fifth with his 29th homer, a 415-foot drive to right on a 3-1 pitch. The slugger connected from both sides of the plate in New York’s 13-6 victory in the series opener on Friday night and had five homers in the last four games of the road trip.
A two-out walk for Gregorius sent Samardzija to the dugout, and Drew greeted Scott Carroll with a two-run double. Drew also had a two-run triple against Carroll in the seventh.
“This whole road trip, from top to bottom, everybody was doing their job,” Gregorius said. “Everybody’s getting on base. Everybody’s scoring, so that’s what we want.”
Alexei Ramirez and Geovany Soto homered for Chicago, and Jose Abreu extended his hitting streak to 13 games with a single in the first.
