Maybin lifts Angels as Yankees lose 7th in row
NEW YORK — Tyler Clippard walked off the mound, stared straight ahead and walked to the dugout as many of the 39,853 fans at Yankee Stadium booed.
Cameron Maybin hit a tiebreaking home run on the struggling reliever’s second pitch of the night, Kole Calhoun lined a double to right-center on his eighth, Albert Pujols hit a warning-track flyout on his 11th and Yunel Escobar tripled off the top of the left-field wall, just above the glove of leaping Brett Gardner, on his 12th and last.
In a little more than a week, New York’s season has gone from promising to plummeting.
“It’s super frustrating,” Clippard said after Tuesday night’s 8-3 loss to the Los Angeles Angels extended the Yankees’ losing streak to seven games, their longest in a single season since April 2007.
A week ago, the Yankees led the AL East by four games after winning the opener of a West Coast trip at Angel Stadium. But even with the return of closer Aroldis Chapman from the disabled list last weekend, New York dropped out of first place for the first time since mid-May and trails Boston by a half-game.
“We’ve got to catch them now,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “I think a lot of times you find out a lot more about your club now than you do when you’re going through great times.”
Even with reliever Adam Warren on the disabled list, Girardi is reluctant to use setup man Dellin Betances for six outs, preferring he pitch only the eighth to hold leads.
“I think you could do it for a short period of time, but I think it starts to wear on guys physically because of the long season,” Girardi said. “We might have to look at some different things.”
Aaron Judge hit his major league-leading 24th home run and Gary Sanchez his 12th as New York
Angels 8, Yankees 3
climbed back from a 3-0 deficit.
Clippard (1-4) allowed runs for the third time in four outings. After Jonathan Holder relieved, Luis Valbuena singled through a drawn-in infield to drive in another run.
“It’s up to all of us in here to pick ourselves up and get it right, and that’s what we’re going to do,” Clippard said. “We all expect that out of ourselves. I expect that out of myself. I don’t think any of us are worried about it.”
Los Angeles, which outhit New York 14-4 despite missing injured AL MVP Mike Trout, had lost its nine previous games at Yankee Stadium and 18 of 21. In one of the season’s quirkier stats, the Angels improved to 12-0 on Tuesdays.
Maybin had three hits and two RBIs, including a run-scoring chopper in the eighth.Valbuena added a solo homer off Holder in the ninth.
“We did a lot of good things, without our best player,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. “That points to the depth we need to establish in our lineup.”
Blake Parker (3-2) allowed Sanchez’s tying home run in the sixth. Parker Bridwell, taking the rotation spot vacated when Matt Shoemaker went on the disabled list, gave up two runs, two hits and five walks in five innings.
Michael Pineda allowed three runs — one earned — and seven hits in 5 2/3 innings.
“He battled really, really well tonight considering he had no location on his fastball, basically zero,” Girardi said.
Los Angeles went ahead nine pitches in when Pujols’ single scored Maybin, who doubled leading off, and the Angels opened a 3-0 lead in the second with a pair of unearned runs after Eric Young Jr.’s leadoff grounder rolled under the glove of first baseman Chris Carter for a twobase error.