NEW YORK — The Yankees came into this four-game series having surrendered just three home runs in their first 15 games. By the time Thursday afternoon was done at Yankee Stadium, that number had ballooned to 16 over four days. And the man who stuck the most painful dagger belonged to an old friend.
Oswald Peraza, discarded by the Yankees last summer for minor league outfielder Wilberson De Pena and international bonus pool money, did not waste his chance to haunt his former employers. The 25-year-old third baseman drove in three runs, launched a two-run homer and added a tie-breaking RBI double as the Los Angeles Angels hammered New York, 11-4, Thursday at Yankee Stadium.
Peraza’s production punishes old team
The Yankees traded Peraza away without getting much in return. That decision looked even more questionable Thursday. Peraza entered the game batting .275 and went 2-for-4 with a walk and a stolen base, recording the three RBI that proved to be the difference.
He opened the scoring with a two-run blast to left field off Max Fried in the first inning, pulling the Angels ahead 2-1 despite Judge’s leadoff homer just moments earlier. Then, in the sixth inning, with the score tied at 3-3 and Fried laboring through a rough outing, Peraza delivered an RBI double that drove home Mike Trout and chased the Yankees starter from the game.
Aaron Boone, who managed Peraza for parts of four seasons with the Yankees, was asked after the game to reflect on what he witnessed from the former farmhand. Boone acknowledged the reality bluntly.
“He looked like what we were excited about several years ago, and then he obviously went through a couple years of really struggling,” Boone said. “He’s super talented. Always has been. He’s fast-twitch and has power and can run and do all those things. Clearly, he’s in as good a place as he’s been in a few years. He absolutely hurt us this series.”
Peraza’s numbers with the Yankees over parts of four seasons were unimpressive — a .548 OPS in limited action. But he went 3-for-3 with a homer in Tuesday’s 7-1 Angels win as well. He tormented his old club across the entire series.
Fried stumbles to shortest start of the season
Max Fried’s performance added another layer of frustration to the Yankees’ afternoon. The lefty ace, who had not allowed a home run through his first four starts of 2026, gave up Peraza’s two-run shot in the first inning. He never found his rhythm after that.
When a reporter asked about his command, Fried acknowledged his three walks were a problem. He was direct about it.
“I didn’t really command a lot of my pitches,” Fried said, calling his free passes “unacceptable.”
Fried finished with 5 1/3 innings pitched, three hits, five earned runs, three walks, and three strikeouts on 93 pitches. He left with two runners on base and Fernando Cruz inherited both of them, allowing both to score along with one of his own. That capped a disastrous four-run sixth inning for the Yankees, as the Angels pulled ahead 6-3. The Yankees bullpen allowed 14 runs in 18 innings across the entire series.
Vaughn Grissom followed with a go-ahead RBI single. Josh Lowe then worked a nine-pitch at-bat, ending with a broken-bat, two-run bloop single to center field. Fried’s ERA climbed to 2.93 on the day, his worst outing of the young season.
Three New York homers, still not nearly enough
The Yankees did not go down without a fight on the offensive side. Aaron Judge hit his eighth home run of the season, a solo shot in the first inning off Brent Suter, his 89th career first-inning homer. Giancarlo Stanton hit a two-run blast in the fourth off Nick Sandlin to give the Yankees a brief 3-2 lead. Ben Rice added a solo shot in the sixth off Sam Aldegheri, who was credited with the win, to cut the deficit to 6-4.
Those three home runs matched the Yankees’ previous total across their first 15 games. For the series as a whole, the Yankees hit nine homers. And still it was not enough to keep up with an Angels lineup that went deep 13 times in four games.
In perhaps the most lopsided subplot of the series, Mike Trout out-homered Aaron Judge 5 to 4. Trout went 6-for-16 with nine RBI over the four games and became the first opposing player in baseball history to homer on four consecutive days at Yankee Stadium, according to MLB researcher Sarah Langs. He also extended his Yankees Stadium streak to five straight games with a homer, dating back to last season. Giancarlo Stanton offered the simplest possible summary of what Trout did all week.
“It’s unreal. Cool showing from him and Judgey all series,” Stanton said. “Obviously, you don’t want that against us, but you gotta acknowledge the greatness.”
Bullpen and balk seal the Yankees’ fate
Angel Chivilli gave up Trout’s fifth homer of the series in the seventh, sending the ball deep into the left field bleachers for a 7-4 lead. Then came the eighth inning, which turned into the punctuation mark on a long week.
Yankees longman Ryan Yarbrough was called for a balk, with runners on first and second and two outs. The Yankees responded by intentionally walking Trout to load the bases. Jo Adell then crushed a grand slam, the 13th home run the Yankees allowed in the four-game set. Boone was ejected after the inning, seeking clarity on the balk call. He called the home run explosion the defining story of the series.
“Story of the series, we just didn’t keep the ball in the ballpark,” Boone said. “That’s something we’ve done really well up until this series. They just kept coming at us. Had a hard time managing contact against them this series.”
The Yankees fell to 10-9 on the season after losing seven of their last nine games. They have now failed to win a series in three consecutive tries. Cam Schlittler starts Friday’s opener of a three-game Yankees home series against Kansas City.
Boone said the Yankees remain confident in the group and believe the offense is beginning to come around. But he was clear about what needs to change.
“We gotta put it together now to start winning series again and get it moving in the right way,” Boone said.
Yankees batting
Yankees batting AB R H RBI HR BB K T. Grisham (CF) 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 A. Judge (RF) 3 1 1 1 1 0 0 C. Bellinger (LF) 2 1 1 0 0 1 1 G. Stanton (DH) 3 1 1 2 1 0 0 B. Rice (1B) 3 1 1 1 1 0 1 A. Rosario (3B) 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 J. Chisholm Jr. (2B) 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 J. Caballero (SS) 3 0 2 0 0 0 1 J.C. Escarra (C) 2 0 1 0 0 0 1 TOTALS 22 4 7 4 3 4 5 Angels batting
Angels batting AB R H RBI HR BB K Z. Neto (SS) 4 0 0 0 0 0 2 M. Trout (DH) 2 2 1 1 1 2 0 J. Adell (RF) 3 2 1 0 0 1 1 O. Peraza (3B) 3 2 2 3 1 1 1 V. Grissom (2B) 3 1 1 1 0 1 0 N. Schanuel (1B) 4 0 0 0 0 0 1 T. d’Arnaud (C) 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 J. Lowe (LF-CF) 3 0 1 2 0 0 0 B. Teodosio (CF) 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 A. Frazier (PH-LF) 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 TOTALS 27 7 6 7 2 6 7 Yankees pitching
Yankees pitching IP H R ER BB K HR ERA M. Fried (L, 2-1) 5.1 3 5 5 3 3 1 2.93 F. Cruz 0.2 2 2 2 0 0 0 9.00 A. Chivilli 1.0 1 1 1 0 0 1 13.50 R. Yarbrough 0.2 2 4 4 1 1 1 5.66 Angels pitching
Angels pitching IP H R ER BB K HR ERA B. Suter 2.0 3 1 1 2 2 1 2.40 N. Sandlin 1.1 1 2 2 1 1 1 21.60 S. Aldegheri (W, 1-0) 1.2 2 1 1 1 2 1 5.40 S. Bachman 1.0 1 0 0 0 0 0 4.32 What do you think? Leave your comment below.
