No Doubt! Angels Win 4-3 in 10 Innings on Stefanic’s GW Double

The Yankees came to town for their annual appearance in Anaheim. The Angels had Griffin Canning tabbed for the start on the the mound, while New York countered with Luis Severino. Both pitchers went toe to toe putting up zeroes for the first 5 innings, with a few big plays sprinkled in, the biggest of which was in the 3rd inning when Shohei doubled to the left-center gap with Zach Neto on first base. Neto was waved home, but no mistakes were made on the relay and he was tagged out by a mile.

As Canning continued to deal, albeit inefficiently pitch-count wise due to the 12 strikeouts he would eventually rack up, the Angels has their next best chance to do some damage in the 5th inning when Renfroe led off with a walk and Trey Cabbage followed up with a ground-rule double to give the Halos two runners in scoring position with no outs. After Escobar struck out swinging, Zach Neto grounded to the drawn-in third baseman who easily threw home to tag Renfroe out who was running on contact. Severino then intentionally walked Ohtani to load the bases for Mickey Moniak, which turned out to be the right move when Mickey lined out to end the inning.

Canning went back out for the 6th inning and tried his darndest to finish one more inning, but he seemed to hit a wall after the first two outs when he allowed two singles and a walk. This ended his night, but with an astounding 120 (!) pitches, at least for this modern era.

It was nice to see, but not so nice to see Herget come in to clean things up, especially when Oswaldo Cabrera hit a gapper ground rule double to give the Yankees a 2 run lead.

The Angels came back to life just a bit in the bottom of the inning thanks to Matt Thaiss’ long solo homer to put the Angels on the board. That’s all they would manage in the inning. 2-1 Yankees after 6.

Gerardo Reyes replaced Herget and did a great job holding the lead in the 7th. New Yankee pitcher Michael King replaced Severino and struck out two batters while walking Escobar, which then brought up Shohei with a runner on 1st, not permitting them to intentionally walk him. The result was truly glorious when Shohei extended his home run streak to 3 games with his league leading 35th, including a marvelous bat flip. 3-3 tie!

Neither team scored in the 8th inning, as Reyes gave way to reliever Matt Moore to get the third out of the inning. Moore went out to pitch the 9th inning, but started off shakily giving up a leadoff single to LeMahieu which included a bobble by Renfroe allowing D.J. to advance to second base. After walking Oswald Peraza, Moore had to face Giancarlo Stanton with two runners on. With one big swing, it looked for a moment like the score was about to become 6-3, but the long fly came up just short and the Yankees’ choice to have the runners on the move forced them to not be able to tag up, instead having to retreat to 1st and 2nd. This proved to be mighty beneficial when Gleyber Torres grounded into a double play to end the Yankees’ half of the 9th with the score still tied.

Ohtani led off the 9th with a chance to be the hero again, or to hit for the cycle at least since he was only a double shy. But there would be no magic this time as Sho struck out swinging against Anaheim native Nick Ramirez. Mickey then lined out to left. After Taylor Ward walked, Moustakas cued a ball to third base area for an infield single. Matt Thaiss showed a good eye, taking some borderline balls, but his luck ran out when the umpire called the final one as a strike, prompting Thaiss to slam his bat and helmet while screaming obscenities, getting him ejected in the process as the game headed to extra innings.

Aaron Loup was the next man up in the 10th and looked strong, coaxing a ground out and two strikeouts to keep the game tied. In the bottom of the 10th the first two batters made outs to set the stage for Michael Stefanic, who had the clutch game-winning hit down the line, scoring Wallach from second base. Angels win 4-3!!!