Woe is the offense, woe is Garrett Richards, and woe is this team as the Halos drop series to Yanks

Yankees 3, Angels 1

It was a tough task, the tallest of orders, to turn around after Saturday’s offensive outburst and face Masahiro Tanaka and his pretty solid 1.10 WHIP, although his ERA is inflated.

Shohei Ohtani made the lineup card, but it was barebones, chilled right down to the nerve of this Angels team. With Justin Upton taking a recovery day after being hit in the hand and Albert Pujols getting a day off, the 5-through-9 hitters featured these hitters with these stat lines coming into Sunday:

Luis Valbuena .227/.270/.336

Ian Kinsler .182/.255/.270

Martin Maldonado .256/.321/.372

Kole Calhoun .157/.201/.195

Chris Young .151/.250/.302

——————-———-———-———-——--———-———-——--———-——--———-———--———-—-

When you put it like that, the offense was naturally pathetic, stemming from the root of the disease. It wasn’t hard to figure out why the Angels managed only 1 run today; in fact, it is so obvious that Sherlock Holmes himself might overlook it. While Mike Trout went hitless and couldn’t duplicate his Saturday night fireworks show (unlike Jose Altuve, who had hits in 10 straight ABs), the obvious problem with the offense was those five hitters batting 5-through-9, and sure enough, those spots combined to go 1-24 with 1 walk.

Meanwhile, Garrett Richards was very uneffectively wild. He labored through 2.1 innings, expending 70 pitches and walking 5, leaving the bases loaded with one out in the third to Jose Alvarez. The reliever promptly banged Greg Bird, and the damage was limited, but the Yankees would escape the 3rd with 3 runs.

Andrelton Simmons hit a solo homer. Yay.

All in all, the team came into New York in poor form, did nothing to remedy that, and slinks off to Detroit looking to pick up some games against the AL Central.