NEW YORK — At least Davis Daniel kept Aaron Judge and Juan Soto from doing any serious damage.
Unfortunately for the Angels, Judge still scored a run after walking when the Angels pitched around him, and he drove one in with a single after Daniel was out of the game.
And the rest of the New York Yankees still did enough to beat Daniel and the Angels, 5-2, in the first game of a doubleheader on Wednesday.
“When he got the ball up, they didn’t miss it,” manager Ron Washington said. “Couldn’t make some pitches in some situations. Every time he got the ball up and out over the plate, they barreled it.”
Daniel has been good in two of his five starts – allowing one run in 13 innings in those games. His 6.04 ERA demonstrates how rough the other three starts have been.
“There’s definitely confidence knowing that I can have success up here,” Daniel said. “So just continuing to build off that. The other stuff, the not-as-good outings, we’ve got to figure it out, figure out some consistency if we want to stick up here.”
This one figured to be a challenge because of the opponent.
Before the game, Angels manager Ron Washington said he would be happy to put up four fingers to intentionally walk Judge – arguably the game’s best overall hitter right now – and make the rest of the Yankees beat them. In the eighth inning, the Angels intentionally walked Judge with the bases empty, down by three runs.
In the first inning, the Angels walked Judge, although not intentionally, and Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe each had run-scoring hits later in the inning.
No. 9 hitter Oswaldo Cabrera hit a homer in the second inning.
Judge led off the third with a single, and Wells followed with a double, but Daniel escaped that jam with two strikeouts and a pop-up.
In the fourth, Daniel walked No. 8 hitter Ben Rice and gave up an RBI double to Alex Verdugo, ending his day.
“I think I went out and battled,” Daniel said. “I obviously didn’t have my best stuff. I couldn’t land the breaking ball, so I ended up in a lot of 1-0, 2-0 counts. That’s a good lineup and they get a whole lot better when you’re working from behind.”
After Daniel was out, Judge singled against reliever José Marte, driving in the fifth run of the game. Washington said they were trying to pitch around Judge, with first base open and two outs, but Marte missed his location. That put the Angels in a five-run hole.
That was too big of a deficit on a day when the Angels faced Yankees rookie phenom Luis Gil. The Angels had opportunities against Gil, with five walks, but otherwise they managed just two singles.
Nolan Schanuel came up with two outs and two on in the second and fourth innings, and both times he came up empty.
Schanuel finally reached on a walk in the seventh, and he scored on Zach Neto’s 15th home run of the season. Neto is hitting .324 with an OPS of 1.019 in his last
“I can see a lot more patience. I don’t see the big wild swing where he’s his body is looking at it at the dugout. He’s staying on the field, and he’s getting results.
More to come on this story.
