ANAHEIM — As they scattered for different destinations for the four-day All-Star break, the Yankees vowed losing three straight to the Angels didn’t throw cold water on what they deemed a successful first half of the season.
“You can’t let three games take away from the first half,” Derek Jeter said following a 5-4 loss at Angel Stadium in front of 41,532. “They played better than us.”
The Angels usually do. Since the beginning of the 2004 season, the Yankees are 18-33 against the Angels overall and 7-18 in Southern California. The Yankees took two of three in The Bronx this year, but their struggles with the fundamentally sound, make-things-happen Angels are well documented.
Aggravating the Yankees further was the fact they flushed four-run leads Friday and Saturday before a brutal fourth inning by ace CC Sabathia did them in yesterday.
“It’s not how you want to end the first half,” manager Joe Girardi said. “But if you sulk about the last three days . . . you can’t do that. We are not happy with what happened here. We gave up two leads [Friday and Saturday] and today we had chances and didn’t take advantage of them.”
When the Yankees checked into Angel Stadium on Friday they were tied with the Red Sox (against whom they are 0-8) for first place in the AL East. Three losses to the AL West-leading Angels and they are three games back.
Alex Rodriguez made the final out of the game when Brian Fuentes fanned him with a 1-2 pitch and killed a seventh-inning rally by grounding into a third-to-first double play.
“They find a way to beat us and we have to figure out a way to beat them,” Rodriguez said. “I feel good about this team but we have to find a way to beat good teams.”
After Sabathia (8-6) gave up four runs in the fourth inning to give the Angels a 4-1 lead, pinch-hitter Jorge Posada’s single in the seventh scored Melky Cabrera to halve the deficit. Sabathia gave up a run in the home half and the Yankees responded with two in the eighth — and if not for a well-placed glove by reliever Darren Oliver the score would have been tied.
Reliever Justin Speier opened the inning by walking Hideki Matsui, giving up a single to Robinson Cano and hitting Eric Hinske to load the bases without an out. Cabrera singled in a run and Posada plated another with a sacrifice fly to center.
Nick Swisher, hitting for Brett Gardner against the left-handed Oliver, smoked a 1-2 pitch at the reliever’s shins for what appeared to be a game-tying single. However, Oliver’s follow-through put his glove in perfect position to make the catch and turn it into an inning-ending double play.
“I had a great swing and hit it hard,” Swisher said. “I looked up and he was [throwing] to first base. Hats off to him. We had chances to do stuff but we never caught a break.”
In 6 2/3 innings, Sabathia gave up five runs and nine hits.
“You can’t take away that bad inning away but I think I had good stuff,” said Sabathia, whose next start is scheduled for Saturday against the Tigers in the second game back from the break.
As for his first half, Sabathia acknowledged there is room to grow.
“So, so,” he said of his first 19 starts. “I was in a pretty good slot for a while, but I need to do better.”
The same can be said of the Yankees against the Angels.
