Kent Bewley's News Story Collection

On Tue, Apr 14, the Los Angeles Angels played the second game of a four-game series against the New York Yankees in the Bronx. Following a thrilling back-and-forth game on Monday night where Mike Trout and Aaron Judge each had multi-HR games and the Yankees walked off the Angels with a three-run rally in the bottom of the ninth, this second game was seeking to be a good encore to the opener. The Halos had Reid Detmers as the starting pitcher, while the Pinstripers countered with fellow lefty Ryan Weathers.

The game started with a blast as after a night where they scored 10 runs and it wasn’t enough for the victory, the Angels decided to continue their offensive torrent on this road trip. Mike Trout came up for his first at-bat of the night after he hit two home runs the night before to tie and pass Duke Snider on the MLB all-time home run list, and he decided to hit another big fly. Trout hammered the ball to deep center field and it sailed well over the head of Trent Grisham for a solo home run. The Halos had taken an immediate 1-0 lead over the Yankees, but they were just getting started. On the very next pitch thrown by Ryan Weathers, Jo Adell swung at a fastball and the ball went way up into left center field, with it being up and gone into the stands. Back-to-back homers on back-to-back pitches for the Angels. But it still wasn’t over as Jorge Soler, who was still appealing the seven-game suspension that he was handed for the brawl that he engaged in with Atlanta Braves pitcher Reynaldo López a week before, decided to tee up on a 2-0 fastball from Weathers that went out to left field and over the wall for another home run. Three straight homers for the Angels, who had repeated something that they had done in June of last season at Fenway Park against the Boston Red Sox. A trio of big flies in the first inning. A great way to start out this game.

Detmers took advantage of this early lead bump with him only surrendering two hits in the entirety of his outing. In the fourth inning, the Angels got another run on a power swing as Oswald Peraza hit a solo shot to left center field in his first game back at Yankee Stadium since he was traded to the Halos at the trade deadline last season. In the top of the sixth, more runs came as Yoán Moncada hit a two-run single with the bases loaded to give the Angels a 6-0 lead. Moncada had another RBI with a leadoff solo shot to right center field in the top of the eighth to increase the Halos’ lead to 7-0. Detmers pitched into the eighth inning and was only charged for one run in the game. Chase Silseth and Ryan Zeferjahn helped close out the game as the Angels won their ninth game of the season with a 7-1 final score over the Yankees, who lost their sixth game out of their last seven.

Trout now has five home runs for the season and three in his last two games. Adell is heating up with his second homer of the season as he leads the team in batting average at .315 early on. And Soler, in spite of appealing a suspension and not knowing when and for how long he’ll have to serve it, has a team-leading 18 RBIs and that is good enough to be among the top-five RBI leaders in all of MLB so far. This was also Detmers’ first win of the season and first win back as a member of the starting rotation. A very positive step in the right direction for him and a rotation desperate for some extra depth. The Angels are looking good so far in a mediocre American League and AL West division as they seek to get another series win against the Yankees in the Big Apple in these next couple of days.