New York Yankees 3, Los Angeles Angels 2
NEW YORK — The New York Yankees won 3-2 on Gleyber Torres‘ sacrifice fly in the 10th inning after Aaron Judge robbed Shohei Ohtani of a homer just before smashing a two-run rocket.
In the eighth inning, Judge made a diving catch to save the go-ahead run, and the Yankees evened the series after losing the first game.
Gio Urshela tied the game at 2 for the Angels in the eighth inning with an RBI single against his old team. This came one pitch after Wandy Peralta balked Hunter Renfroe to second base.
Following that, Brandon Drury hit a slicing drive to deep right-center that would have driven in the winning run if Judge had not made a sensational capture just inside the warning track.
In the ninth inning, Angels manager Phil Nevin was ejected for arguing after Mike Trout was ruled out on a full-count check swing with two runners on against Clay Holmes. Nevin ran all the way to shallow right field between innings to confront first base umpire Will Little and give him an earful.
In the 10th inning, Judge was intentionally walked with one out and the automatic runner at second. Then, Matt Moore (1-1) hit Anthony Rizzo with a breaking ball, loading the bases.
Torres, who was 1 for 21 at the time, hit a fly ball to deep right-center, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa scored easily from third without a throw.
Ian Hamilton (1-1) worked a scoreless inning to get his second win in the major leagues. DJ LeMahieu made a great play at third base to help him.
The game got off to an exciting start when Ohtani hit a high fly ball to deep center field. The 6-foot-7-inch Judge went back to the wall and jumped, just to the right of the 408-foot sign in front of Monument Park.
The ball hit the heel of Judge’s glove well above the fence and bounced back toward the warning track. As Judge got back on his feet after keeping the ball in the park, he put out his bare hand and caught the ball. It was a quick play that will be remembered for a long time in this three-game series between some of baseball’s biggest stars.
Last year’s AL Most Valuable Player took a moment and smiled widely before throwing the ball in.
Judge then hit Griffin Canning’s pitch into the left-center bullpen, scoring two runs. This was Judge’s sixth home run of the season. Last year, the batter hit 62 home runs, which was an American League record.
In the first game of the series on Tuesday night, Ohtani hit a two-run homer in the first inning, helping the Angels win 5-2. The two-way superstar won the AL MVP award in 2021 and came in second to Judge last year.
Ohtani had a few chances to hurt the team on Wednesday, but he left three runners on base when he struck out to end the fifth and seventh innings.
Last week, Yankees rookie Jhony Brito had a terrible game against Minnesota. He gave up seven runs while only getting two outs. This time, the right-handed pitcher took a no-hitter into the fifth inning and only gave up one run in 4 1/3 innings.
Brito was out because Angels rookie Zach Neto hit his second double of the night, which set up Taylor Ward’s RBI groundout against Michael King.
In his second start after a long injury layoff, Canning gave up two runs and four hits over 5 1/3 innings for Los Angeles.
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Nestor Cortes (2-0, 2.60 ERA), a left-handed All-Star pitcher for the Yankees, has given up two runs or less in nine straight starts. This is tied for the longest such run in Yankees history.
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