Tanaka pitches Yanks past Angels
Masahiro Tanaka scattered three hits over six strong innings and struck out fellow Japanese countryman Shohei Ohtani twice as the New York Yankees defeated the Los Angeles Angels 3-1 Sunday.
Brett Gardner had three hits for New York, which won five of six against the Angels this season.
Although Ohtani was pushed back from Sunday’s scheduled start due to what the Angels called “workload management”, Tanaka (62) held up his end up of the highly anticipated pitchers’ duel that never materialized.
Featuring his splitter, Tanaka struck out eight and allowed just Andrelton Simmons’ sixth-inning home run in his longest outing in nearly a month. One day after he homered and had three doubles in the first five-hit game of his career, Mike Trout went 0 for 4.
Pitching on his 30th birthday, Garrett Richards (4-4) continued his struggles against New York. The right-hander allowed three runs over 2 1-3 innings and matched a season high with five walks.
Richards is 0-5 with an 8.57 ERA over seven career games, six starts, against the Yankees and 44-32 with a 3.36 ERA against the other 28 teams.
New York scored all of its runs in the third. Aaron Judge singled to lead off and after striking out Giancarlo Stanton, who fanned four times, Richards lost the strike zone. He walked the next three batters on 14 pitches to force in a run.
Jose Alvarez relieved and promptly hit Greg Bird to force in another run and Miguel Andujar had an RBI grounder.
Ohtani first batted with two outs and a runner on in the first. Greeted with a loud chorus of boos, Ohtani stepped to the plate against Tanaka for the first time since they played against each other in Japan in 2013.
Tanaka quickly fell behind the two-way star before inducing a swinging strikeout much to the delight of the crowd. Ohtani finished the day 0 for 2 with a walk against the Yankees right-hander and is now 0 for 13 with two walks in all competition against Tanaka.
Aroldis Chapman walked Ohtani to begin the ninth, but struck out a pair to earn his 10th save in 11 chances. Didi Gregorious ranged into the hole at short to take a hit away from Martin Maldonado for the final out of the game.
Trainer’s Room
Yankees: 2B Gleyber Torres was held out of the lineup for just the second time since being recalled on April 22. Manager Aaron Boone indicated that Torres’ left knee was a little “banged up” on Kole Calhoun’s third-inning single Friday night. Boone made sure to note that the rookie sensation was available off the bench if needed and likely would have been in the lineup had the scenario not been a day game after a night game. Torres appeared as a defensive replacement in the eighth.