ANAHEIM — If only the Angels didn’t wait until the ninth inning to start hitting.
After spending most of Tuesday’s game doing nothing at the plate, the Angels threatened in the ninth inning, only to come up short in a 3-2 loss to the New York Yankees.
For the first seven innings, the Angels were blanked by Yankees left-hander Carlos Rodón. They trailed 3-0 when they came to bat in the bottom of the ninth.
Yoán Moncada led off with a home run. Taylor Ward and Luis Rengifo singled, and Ward scored on a Jo Adell ground ball, cutting the deficit to one. Pinch-hitter Logan O’Hoppe came to the plate with two outs, representing the winning run, and he hit a pop-up on a 3-and-0 pitch.
The Angels (25-29) lost their fourth straight game. They’ve scored five runs during the losing streak, after averaging 7.6 runs during their winning streak.
The continuation of the slump on Tuesday was predictable because Rodón came into the game holding opponents to a major-league low .161 batting average.
Rodón is having one of his best seasons, with a 2.60 ERA through 12 starts.
The Angels had five hits and no walks in seven scoreless innings against Rodón, striking out 10 times.
Their best opportunity to score was in the second inning, when Travis d’Arnaud led off with a double. Rengifo then hit a grounder to third, which couldn’t even move d’Arnaud up 90 feet. Adell and Chris Taylor both struck out.
In the third, Zach Neto and Nolan Schanuel had back-to-back singles with one out, but then Moncada and Ward struck out.
Angels starter Tyler Anderson had the unenviable task of trying to match zeroes with Rodon, and doing so against a Yankees’ lineup that led the majors with an .883 OPS against lefties.
When asked before the game about Anderson facing the Yankees, Manager Ron Washington remained optimistic.
“I just want to see him do what he does,” Washington said. “Yeah, they crush lefties. But if Tyler Anderson is on maybe he could be the one to prevent them from crushing lefties. I don’t want Tyler to change what he does. He’ll make an adjustment as he goes through the game and see what he needs to do. He’ll make that adjustment. That’s why he’s a veteran, so we’ll see what happens.”
Anderson, who was coming off back-to-back rough outings, did a commendable job, allowing one earned run in six innings. The second run scored because of an error by center fielder Matthew Lugo.
For the most part, Anderson handled the Yankees’ dangerous lineup. His best moment was in the third inning, when the Yankees had two runners on in front of Aaron Judge. Anderson got the two-time American League MVP on a groundout.
Anderson struck out Judge in their next meeting. Judge singled in the first inning.
Anderson’s biggest mistake was a hanging changeup on a 1-and-2 pitch to Ben Rice, who hit a homer.
More to come on this story.
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