ANAHEIM, Calif._The New York Yankees obliterated the Angels on Saturday night, batting around in the first and second innings of an 11-1 victory in front of a sellout crowd of 44,649 in Angel Stadium, and boy, was third-base coach Phil Nevin's arm tired.
Nevin's left shoulder was so worn out from waving runners home in the first two innings that by the time Gleyber Torres hit an RBI single to push New York's lead to 10-0 in the second, Nevin sent Neil Walker around third with a little flick of the left wrist.
It was that kind of game for the visiting team, which, with chants of "Let's Go Yankees!" breaking out periodically throughout the evening, racked up 14 hits while extending its win streak to eight games, a stretch in which the Yankees have outscored opponents, 62-17.
New York wore down Angels starter Garrett Richards during a 36-pitch first inning in which they scored five runs, and they put up another five-spot against Richards and reliever Eduardo Paredes in the second.
The huge lead made for a no-stress evening for Yankees right-hander Masahiro Tanaka, who effectively mixed his fastball, slider and split-fingered pitch during a six-inning start in which he allowed one run and two hits, struck out nine and walked two.
Although Richards was nowhere near as sharp as he was in previous start, when he held San Francisco to two runs and five hits in six innings of a 4-3 win on April 21, it was an error by shortstop Zack Cozart that led to four unearned runs in the first.
Aaron Judge sparked the rally with a single to center that left his bat at 118.2 mph, the hardest-hit ball in the major leagues this season. Didi Gregorius walked, and Giancarlo Stanton chopped a grounder to the shortstop hole that squirted out of Cozart's glove, allowing Judge to score.
Gary Sanchez roped an RBI double to left and Aaron Hicks hit an RBI grounder to second. Walker reached on a strikeout/passed ball that allowed Sanchez to score, and Miguel Andujar hit an RBI double for a 5-0 lead.
The Yankees sent 10 batters to the plate in the second. Judge followed Brett Gardner's leadoff walk with an RBI double to left-center that left the bat at 115 mph. Sanchez walked with two outs, and Hicks hit a two-run triple to right that made it 8-0 and knocked Richards out.
Paredes gave up an RBI infield single to Walker, a single to Andujar and an RBI single to Torres that made it 10-0.
A three-run deficit would have been difficult for the Angels to erase. The way they're hitting, they'd need three or four days to overcome a 10-run deficit.
After batting .291 and averaging 6.4 runs in their first 16 games, the Angels are hitting .172 and averaging 2.4 runs in their last 11 games, a stretch in which they've faced some of baseball's best pitchers, including Boston's David Price and Rick Porcello, San Francisco's Johnny Cueto, Houston's Gerrit Cole, Charlie Morton and Justin Verlander and New York's Luis Severino.
They were limited to six hits or less in nine of those 11 games.
A lineup that lost slugger Shohei Ohtani to a mild left-ankle sprain Friday night took another hit Saturday when shortstop Andrelton Simmons, who had five hits and seven RBIs over the last four games, was scratched because of a sore right forearm, an injury he suffered last Sunday when he was hit by a Cueto fastball.
A diminished lineup offered little resistance to Tanaka, who allowed a fourth-inning single to Mike Trout and a fifth-inning solo homer to Cozart. Catcher Martin Maldonado extended his streak of at-bats without a hit to 34. Right fielder Kole Calhoun singled in the ninth for his third hit in 43 at-bats.
