Can the Yankees change divisions? Between that Athletics series a few weeks ago and this Angels series, I think the AL West agrees with the Yankees. They blew the Angels out 12-6 Wednesday night for their third straight win. I asked for a blowout in the game thread and the Yankees delivered. Pretty cool. This was only their sixth win by five or more runs this season, by the way. Only the Athletics (four) and Twins (two!) have fewer.
Back & Forth Early
Wednesday night, power pitcher Nathan Eovaldi and finesse pitcher Jered Weaver showed you can allow runs in many different ways in baseball, and early on this game went back and forth. The Angels grabbed a quick 1-0 lead in the top of the first when Mike Trout singled in Kole Calhoun. Calhoun had ground-rule doubled into the right-center field gap. The Yankees answered right back in the bottom half thanks to back-to-back doubles by Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner, and a run-scoring single by Alex Rodriguez. That gave them a 2-1 lead.
The Halos retook the lead the next half inning. Rafael Ortega slashed a double to left and ex-Yankee Gregorio Petit ambushed a first pitch curveball for a two-run homer. Greg Petit! He’s gone 6-for-10 with two doubles and a homer in the series so far. Good grief. Then again, maybe don’t throw this pitch …
… to any hitter, even someone like Gregorio Petit. That two-run homer gave the Angels a 3-2 lead in the second. They extended that lead with a Jefry Marte solo homer into the second deck in left field. Petit and Marte, eh? Not exactly the guys who want to let beat you, Nate. Marte’s dinger gave the Halos a 4-2 lead in the third. It was all Yankees from there on out.
Chip Away
The Yankees started their comeback in the bottom of the third with an Ellsbury solo homer to right field. At 151 feet, it was the highest home run in all of baseball this season. That’s … obscure. But hey, whatever. It was the best at something. That homer cut the deficit to 4-3, then, one inning later, the Yankees tied the game thanks to yet another catcher’s interference by Ellsbury. Seriously.
Chris Parmelee doubled with one out in that fourth inning, then Ellsbury came up with two outs and Parmelee still on second. He hit a hard line drive to the right fielder for what should have been the final out, but the catcher’s interference extended the inning. Gardner made the Angels pay with a single to left to score Ellsbury and tie the game. The Yankees actually went on to load the bases that inning, though they couldn’t tack on any more runs. Alas. Didn’t matter at the end of the day though.
The Halos took a 5-4 lead in the next half-inning on back-to-back doubles by Trout and Albert Pujols. Blah. It always sucks when you rally to tie the game and the other team immediately retakes the lead. It was that kind of night for Eovaldi though. Five runs on ten hits and a walk in 5.1 innings. It was a pre-splitter Eovaldi start, basically. He couldn’t locate much of anything and paid for it.
The Parm of the Yankees
After falling behind 5-4, the Yankees blew this game open and made it a laugher with back-to-back four-run innings in the sixth and seventh. The tying run? A Chris Parmelee solo homer, of course. He was making his first start with the Yankees because he has pretty good career numbers against Jered Weaver, and, sure enough, he took Weaver deep to knot things up 5-5. [insert binder joke]
New York took the lead later in the inning because, once again, Ellsbury and Gardner reached base. Those two reached base times seven on the night. Ellsbury walked, Gardner singled, then Carlos Beltran gave the Yankees a 6-5 lead with a double into the left field corner. Brian McCann stretched the lead to 8-5 with a two-run single to left. It was a real nice piece of hitting, as broadcasters like to say. (That means he went the other way.)
The onslaught continued the next inning with a Didi Gregorius leadoff single and yet another Parmelee homer, this one a two-run shot off lefty Greg Mahle. Parmelee actually squared around to bunt earlier in the at-bat before Mahle fell behind in the count 2-1. Look at the location of the pitch he hit out:
That’s a total golf shot. Angels catcher Carlos Perez was getting ready to pick that one out of the dirt. Not a bad pitch at all by Mahle. Parmelee just reached down and golfed it to right field. Remember the Nick Green Game in 2006? Green had a few big hits and made a few nice defensive plays in one random game and that was pretty much all he did in pinstripes. This might go down as the Chris Parmelee Game. Two dingers, including a game-tying shot? Bravo.
Parmelee’s second homer gave the Yankees a 10-5 lead. Beltran stretched it to 12-5 with a two-run homer later in that seventh inning. That’s three straight games with a dinger for Carlos. He’s gone deep 12 times in his last 29 games overall. Beltran now has 16 homers on the season after hitting 19 all of last year. He was pretty good last year! Beltran’s been unreal this year. It’s been a long time since he’s hit for power like this.
Bullpen Work
Solid work by Anthony Swarzak. He inherited a runner on first with one out from Eovaldi in the sixth, allowed a single to put two men on base, then retired the next five batters he faced. Swarzak was stretched out to 40-something pitches in Triple-A so I thought he would go back out for the eighth once the lead swelled to 12-5, but nope. Kirby Yates tossed the eighth and Nick Goody tossed the ninth. Trout took Goody deep for a monster solo shot into the right field bleachers. That’s opposite field. Whatever. Eh, no big deal given the big lead.
Leftovers
Parmelee did indeed get a chance to hit his third home run of the game in the eighth inning, but he struck out. Alas. Two homers and a double in five at-bats is a pretty damn good first impression though. I know everyone loves Rob Refsnyder, but if this game doesn’t earn Parmelee another start tomorrow, nothing will.
The top four hitters in the lineup: 10-for-17 (.588) with three doubles, two homers, eight runs scored, seven runs driven in, two walks, and one strikeout. That will do just fine, thanks. Gardner and Beltran each had three hits while Ellsbury and A-Rod each had two hits. Ellsbury and Beltran drew the walks, and Ellsbury had the catcher’s interference.
Gregorius also had two hits from the bottom of the lineup. The Yankees had 17 hits total, tying their season high. They had 17 in that 16-6 win over the Astros in the second game of the season. (I know I said 16 hits was the season high the other day. My bad.) Eight of those 17 hits were for extra bases. The Angels bullpen allowed six runs on eight hits in 2.2 innings.
Ellsbury’s catcher’s interference was already his sixth of the season. He actually had another one the other day, but he declined it because he had a base hit on the swing. The all-time single-season record is eight catcher’s interferences by Roberto Kelly with the 1992 Yankees. Ellsbury has 103 games to beat that. (He’s on pace for 16!)
And finally, Wednesday’s HOPE Week event involved an organization called Harlem Grown, which helps children “live healthy and ambitious lives through hands-on education in urban farming, sustainability and nutrition.” A bunch of Yankees helped the kids tend to their gardens and stuff. Pretty neat.
Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
Head on over to ESPN for the box score, MLB.com for the video highlights, then back to ESPN for the updated standings. Also make sure you check out our Bullpen Workload and Announcer Standings pages. Here’s the win probability graph:
Source: FanGraphs
Up Next
The Yankees will go for the four-game sweep (!) Thursday night at Yankee Stadium. Ivan Nova and Jhoulys Chacin are the scheduled starters. We’ll have to watch the game and Day One of the 2016 amateur draft at the same time.
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