The Yankees’ bats continued to come up short Monday night in a 1-0, 11-inning loss to the Los Angeles Angels, as they were shutout for the second straight game.
They’ve now lost four straight games after being swept by the Red Sox in Boston over the weekend and have scored just five runs over the last five games. Manager Aaron Boone was asked after Monday’s loss what’s preventing the team from scoring, saying there’s multiple factors while acknowledging the team’s struggles to come through with a big hit.
“Yeah, a little bit of everything,” Boone. “I mean, right now, when you’re not scoring runs, they’re keeping us in the ballpark. Tonight was a little bit of both, you know, where I thought we had a number of balls on the screws, even there late. Cody [Bellinger] just misses a couple to right, Goldie [Paul Goldschmidt] stepped on that ball to left center, so we were barreling some balls up.
“But then, but that said, we’re not punching any across, not hitting the home run, you know. And we had a couple situations where we could have produced a run there late and weren’t able to take advantage of it.”
New York has gone 1-for-18 with runners in scoring position and have left 12 men on base during this losing streak. Their last run came in the top of the ninth inning of Saturday’s 4-3 loss with Anthony Volpe driving in one on a groundout.
Boone went on to credit Angels starter Jose Soriano and his “bowling ball sinker”, as the right-hander allowed six hits over seven scoreless innings. Although, he knows the team needed to “take advantage of situational things that come up” when they can’t rely on the home run.
The Yanks had a scoring chance in the 11th with the bases loaded, but Volpe swung on the first pitch and grounded into the force out at third base for the game’s final out. Boone defended the choice to not take a pitch against the new reliever Hunter Strickland, saying the hitter needs “to be ready to go” in those types of situations.
“Not necessarily, first pitch is the best one to hit sometimes,” Boone said. “I didn’t see if it was off the plate, not a good pitch to go after, that might be the case, but we got to be ready to go there.”
New York is now 42-29 on the season and hold just a 2.5 game lead in the AL East over the Tampa Bay Rays, who’ve won 19 of their last 25 games. They’ll look to get back on track Tuesday when Will Warren takes the mound against the Angels.
Aaron Boone was asked if he would’ve preferred for Anthony Volpe to take a pitch in the 11th inning (he grounded out on one pitch with the bases loaded)
“Not necessarily. The first pitch is the best one to hit sometimes” pic.twitter.com/23K0Mx0QfR
— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) June 17, 2025
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