CC Sabathia Sharp Before Ejection; Yankees Sweep Angels, 6-2

CC Sabathia pitched six sharp innings before being ejected for arguing balls and strikes, Brett Gardner hit a tiebreaking, three-run homer Sunday and the New York Yankees won their season-high sixth straight game, 6-2 over the Los Angeles Angels.

Jose Pirela hit his first big league homer and Chris Young also connected off C.J. Wilson (3-5) for New York, which came back to win after building big leads in the first two games of the series. The Yankees swept the Angels, losers of five in a row, in a series of at least three games for the first time since 2003.

Sabathia (3-7) gave up back-to-back homers to Mike Trout and Albert Pujols in the first inning but then breezed through a struggling Angles lineup the rest of the way, notching his 2,500th career strikeout in the fifth.

Pujols' homer was his 535th, breaking a tie with Jimmie Foxx for 17th place on the career list.

After getting Kole Calhoun to end the sixth with a double-play grounder, Sabathia indicated his displeasure with the strike zone as he walked off the field, pointing to the ground and shouting at plate umpire Dan Bellino.

Bellino tossed the big lefty as he crossed the first base line, and manager Joe Girardi jumped the dugout railing and raced toward home plate. He was quickly ejected, too. Sabathia, meanwhile, changed his path and hustled toward home. He was physically restrained by a teammate as he yelled at Bellino.

It was the second consecutive solid start for Sabathia in a trying season. He followed up a two-run, three-hit outing in Seattle by giving up five hits and two runs with a walk and seven strikeouts.

On regular rest, Sabathia was pitching in place of Michael Pineda, who had his turn skipped as the Yankees manage the innings workload for the injury-prone righty.

Wilson worked neatly into the fifth, allowing only Didi Gregorius' RBI grounder. But Young led off the inning with his first homer since May 2 before John Ryan Murphy and Gregorius singled. Gardner then lined a shot to the short right-field porch for a 5-2 lead.

Pirela homered off Wilson to start the seventh. Wilson gave up seven hits and six runs in seven innings.

The Angels ran themselves out of a run in the third. Erick Aybar, jogging home on David Freese's fly to the corner in right, failed to cross the plate before Trout was nabbed at second for a double play on a strong throw by Carlos Beltran.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
Contact Us