Kyle Hendricks leads Angels to 2nd straight shutout of Yankees
NEW YORK — Kyle Hendricks put on a clinic for every velocity-challenged pitcher in baseball.
The Angels’ soft-throwing right-hander pitched six innings in a 4-0 victory over the New York Yankees on Tuesday night.
Statistically, the Yankees have been one of baseball’s highest scoring teams and the Angels have been one of the worst at preventing runs, but the Angels nonetheless shut out the Yankees in the first two games of this series.
The Angels (35-37) became the first team since the Toronto Blue Jays in 2015 to shut out the Yankees in back-to-back games at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees (42-30) were also shut out on Sunday in Boston.
José Soriano, who throws his sinker in the upper 90s, dominated for seven innings in an 11-inning victory on Monday, while Hendricks did his work in a decidedly different fashion on Tuesday.
The 35-year-old right-hander flicked a variety of 86 mph fastballs, 80 mph changeups and 73 mph curveballs at the Yankees, and they seemed off balance all night.
Hendricks struck out nine, his most since 2020, and he walked just one. He gave up a double to Cody Bellinger with two outs in the first, and then scattered three singles through the rest of the game.
Two of his strikeouts were against Aaron Judge, who went down looking at a changeup in the first and swinging through one in the sixth.
Judge is 3 for 15 in five games against the Angels this season, with six walks (four intentional). He does not have an extra-base hit.
After Hendricks was done, right-hander Ryan Zeferjahn, left-hander Reid Detmers and right-hander Hunter Strickland worked the final three innings.
Closer Kenley Jansen, who had pitched the previous two days, was not needed because the Angels had a four-run lead.
Logan O’Hoppe doubled and scored on a Luis Rengifo single in the second. Taylor Ward knocked a bases-loaded single off the glove of third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. in the third, knocking in two more runs.
In the seventh, the Angels loaded the bases on a single, a catcher’s interference and a hit batter, and then Nolan Schanuel drove in the run with a groundout.
More to come on this story.