ANAHEIM, Calif. _ Cody Allen may have put it best Wednesday afternoon, when the struggling reliever was discussing his demotion from the closer role with a group of reporters outside the Los Angeles Angels clubhouse.
"This game is humbling," the veteran right-hander said. "It's either hard or really hard."
Wednesday night's 6-5 loss to the New York Yankees before 37,928 in Angel Stadium fell under the latter category.
The Angels, for whom victories have been so elusive in the past two weeks, took a 5-0 lead into the sixth inning and appeared well on their way to a win before crumbling amid a flurry of walks and timely Yankees hits.
New York scored twice in the sixth and three times in the seventh to tie the score and won with a quick-strike two-out rally off Angels reliever Ty Buttrey in the ninth.
Buttrey, who did not allow an earned run in 9 1/3 innings of his first 11 games this season, got the final three outs of the seventh, retired the side in order in the eighth and got two outs in the ninth with the help of right fielder Kole Calhoun, who made a running, leaping catch at the wall to rob Mike Tauchman of a double.
But No. 9 hitter Tyler Wade singled to right-center, stole second and scored when D.J. LeMahieu flared a single to right field. Closer Aroldis Chapman threw a scoreless ninth for his fourth save, sending the Angels to their 10th loss in 12 games and the Yankees to their sixth straight win.
The Angels built a 5-0 lead on Andrelton Simmons' two solo homers off Yankees starter CC Sabathia, in the first and fourth innings, and Calhoun's three-run homer later in the fourth.
The Angels employed an "opener" for the second time in four games. Reliever Cam Bedrosian struck out two in a scoreless first and Felix Pena followed with five strong innings in which he allowed two runs _ one earned _ struck out eight, seven with a nasty slider, and walked none.
But the Yankees scored twice off Pena in the sixth _ on LeMahieu's RBI double and catcher Jonathan Lucroy's passed ball _ and took advantage of Angels reliever Luis Garcia's inability to find the strike zone to tie the score 5-5 in the seventh.
Garcia walked Mike Ford to open the inning. Gio Urshela singled to right, and Tauchman walked to load the bases. Garcia issued a four-pitch walk to Wade to force in a run and was replaced by right-hander Buttrey.
LeMahieu hit a sacrifice fly to deep left field to make it 5-4. Tauchman tagged and took third, and Wade took second when left fielder Brian Goodwin threw to third base instead of second.
The Angels brought their infield half-way in. Luke Voit hit a hard grounder to shortstop, but Simmons' throw home pulled Lucroy to the first-base side of the plate. Tauchman slid home with the tying run.
Brett Gardner followed with a drive to deep center field, where Mike Trout made a spectacular lunging, behind-the-head catch on the warning track for the second out before firing a throw to the infield.
Wade got back to second in plenty of time to avoid being doubled off, but he inadvertently stepped off the bag for a split-second to adjust his feet while Simmons kept his glove on Wade's back. Simmons immediately called for an instant-replay review, and Wade was called out to end the inning.
Simmons lined his first homer over the left-center-field wall. His second was a towering fly ball over the short wall in left for his fifth career multihomer game.
Albert Pujols followed Simmons' second homer with a single and took second when Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez dropped Goodwin's sacrifice bunt for an error.
Lucroy grounded into a fielder's choice, putting runners on first and third for Calhoun, who worked the count full.
Sabathia hung a slider, middle in, and Calhoun crushed the poorly located pitch to right field for a three-run homer, the ball carrying 404 feet and giving the Angels a 5-0 lead.
Pena retired nine straight batters after replacing Bedrosian before running into trouble in the sixth. Of his 78 pitches, 42 were sliders thrown between 82 mph to 85 mph, most of them down in the zone. Of those 42 sliders, 13 were swinging strikes, five were called strikes, five were foul balls and four were put in play.
