Another Low Point. LA Angels 7 NY Yankees 3

July 21, 2023 paperbacklou 2023 0
Giancarlo Stanton homer to opposite field in 6th.

45 years to the day when the Yankees found themselves 14.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox — their lowest nadir in the magical, come-from-behind 1978 championship season — the Yankees lost again to fall 9 games back of Tampa and Baltimore in dead last in the American League East. (Yes, Baltimore finally tied Tampa.)

It was NY’s 4th loss in a row.

This time Carlos Rodon — the high-priced free agent they picked up in the off season to be an ace at top of the rotation, and then got injured and hadn’t pitched until July — got RIPPED and the LA Angels won easy, 7-3 on a Wednesday night in Anaheim.

At least the Yankees out-hit the Angels — 8 to 6 — but baseball is a scoring contest not a hitting contest, as manager Aaron Boone likes to say, and the Yankees found themselves in a 6-0 hole by the 3rd inning which they could not climb out of.

“We’re not very good right now, we understand that,” said Boone afterwards. “Certainly this is a low point for us. The silver lining in it all is that it is all in front of us, and we control that, and we understand that. Acknowledging that we’re not in a good place as a team right now, and we’re not playing anywhere near the ball we need to play to put ourselves in a good position by the end of the season. But understanding that we are in the fight and we need to continue to stay in the fight and we control all this with our play.”

The Angels swept the 3-game series. NY falls to 50-47, 9 games behind Baltimore and Tampa, 3.5 behind Toronto, and 1 back of Boston. The Angels go to 49-48, 9 back of Texas in their division.

Unlike 1978, there are 3 Wild Card spots available these days. NY is 4 behind a Wild Card.

1. Rodon Bombed

Carlos Rodon allowed 2 runs in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, putting NY in an early 6-0 hole.

  1. In the bottom of the 1st, he walked Shohei Ohtani and Taylor Ward hit a 405-foot bomb to left for a 2-0 LA lead.
  2. In the bottom of the 2nd, Rodon walked Hunter Renfroe leading off, and next batter Luis Rengifo hit a 418-foot bomb to left center for a 4-0 LA lead.
  3. In the bottom of the 3rd, Rodon walked the first 2 batters, and then gave up an RBI single to Mickey Moniak and an RBI groundout to Escobar.

Rodon pitched a shutout 4th — pithing around a 1-out single — and left after getting the 1st out of the 5th.

As Rodon walked off the mound in the 2nd inning he was loudly booed by the many Yankee fans at Anaheim Stadium — and he waived a kiss at the boo birds.

“I was just angry at myself and blew a kiss and that was unfortunate,” said Rodon afterwards.

“I didn’t get that rhythm that I like to find,” said Rodon afterwards. “They just kicked my teeth in today, and it wasn’t good. I didn’t do my job today and give my team a chance.”

2. Top Prospect Silseth Shuts Down Yanks

The Yanks were up against Chase Silseth whose 1-1 5.30 record coming in was a false marker for the fact that he is the Angels’ top pitching prospect. The 6’0, 23-year-old righty throws 98-MPH heat and he struck out 3 in the 1st inning, and struck out the side in the 4th en route to a shutout into the 6th inning.

Finally Giancarlo Stanton got to Silseth with a homer leading off the 6th, making it a 6-1 game.

As if annoyed, Silseth then struck out DJ LeMahieu and Anthony Volpe and left with 2 outs in the 6th at 85 pitches.

His line: 5.2 innings, 4 hits, 10 K’s, 2 walks. He wins to go 2-1 4.44.

The Angels brought in reliever Jose Soriano and the Yankees pounced — Franchy Cordero singled to right, Harrison Bader was hit by a pitch, and Kyle Higashioka singled in a run to make it a 6-2 game.

Oswaldo Cabrera walked against Soriano to load the bases with 2 outs — but Oswald Peraza — who was Yankee Twitter’s darling coming off the spectacular game on Monday (1-1 with 4 walks) but an 0-4 with 3 strikeouts on Tuesday — struck out looking.

And that was the last chance the Yanks had to get back in the game.

3. Franchy Homers

Franchy Cordero — just brought back from AAA due to the injury to Josh Donaldson — homered off Matt Moore leading off the 8th for a 6-3 game, but Moore reared back and struck out the next 3 batters.

4. Kahnle Allows a Run

Ian Hamilton, Wandy Peralta, and Ron Marinaccio (shutout 7th) kept LA at bay and the score at 6-3 into the 8th.

But Tommy Kahnle had another rough outing — his second in a row — with two walks and a ground-rules double for a run in the 8th to make it 7-3 LA.

5. Peraza Strikes Out 4 Times

LA reliever Aaron Loup pitched the 9th — striking out Oswald Peraza to begin the inning — the 4th time in the game Peraza struck out; he was 0-4 with a walk — and the big strikeout with bases loaded in the 6th. It made it 7 strikeouts in his last 8 at bats — after being the darling of Yankee Twitter Monday night and all day Tuesday, as so many fans wondered vociferously why he was in AAA all year while Josh Donaldson was on the big club.

Peraza started the year with the big club but was sent down with a .188 average after 35 at bats. He ate up AAA at first, and then cooled a bit to a 12-28-.261 (.352) when he was called back up.

Loup then got Gleyber Torres and Giancarlo Stanton to ground out for the old ballgame.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401472458

 

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