Yanks don’t hit, pitch, or field in loss to Halos

Source: FanGraphs

The bad news: the Yankees lost a second straight game to the Angels on Tuesday night. The good news: they only have to play one more game in this hellhole. Let’s recap…

• Epidemic: The Yankees loaded the bases in both the third and ninth innings, and both times Robinson Cano struck out to end the threat. The club’s inability to hit with runners in scoring position has morphed into a complete inability to hit with the bases loaded, something they did so fabulously last season. As a team, the Yankees have zero hits in their last 15 at-bats and one hit in their last 34 at-bats with the bases juiced. That’s as pathetic as it gets.
• Not Dandy: Andy Pettitte didn’t pitch as poorly as his line indicates — five runs in seven innings — with most of the damage coming on homers by Albert Pujols (two-run) and Mark Trumbo (solo). The umps didn’t give him any help in the three-run third, but at the end of the day Pettitte didn’t make the pitches he needed to make to get outs. Andy wasn’t great but he wasn’t bad, which is kinda typical for him.
• Robbed: Poor Nick Swisher. The guy hit four rockets to the outfield and has one run-scoring single to show for it. Mike Trout robbed him of a maybe homer/maybe double at the left field wall in the second, then Peter Bourjos took away doubles to the right-center field gap in the seventh and eighth. The seventh inning catch was much better. That’s kinda how things go for the Yankees in Anaheim, anything that can break against them does.
• Leftovers: Derek Jeter (two) and Alex Rodriguez (three) had multiple singles while Raul Ibanez’s double was the only extra-base hit of the night … with the two strikeouts, Cano is now 6-for-44 (.136) with runners in scoring position this season … the bottom six hitters in the lineup went a combined 5-for-24 … Cody Eppley allowed two ground ball singles in the ninth (one an infield single) and was unable to strand the runner he inherited from Pettitte.

MLB.com has the box score and video highlights, FanGraphs the advanced stats, and ESPN the updated standings. The Yankees will turn to Ivan Nova to avoid the sweep on Wednesday night. He gets the ball against Ervin Santana.