Yarbrough shines, Volpe delivers as Yankees top Angels 5–1

Anaheim—The Yankees took down the Angels 5-1 in game one of this three-game series. Ryan Yarbrough got the start for the Yankees, and  Jack Kochanowicz took the mound for the Angels. 

In the top of the first inning, Ben Rice, Trent Grisham, and Aaron Judge went down in order for the Yankees. 

Zach Neto led off the bottom of the first inning with a solo home run to give the Angels a 1-0 lead. 

In the top of the second inning, Cody Bellinger, Jasson Dominguez, and Anthony Volpe went down in order for the Yankees.

Yarbrough worked around a two-out walk in the bottom of the second inning and picked up his second strikeout of the ballgame to work a scoreless frame. 

Austin Wells, Jorbit Vivas, and Oswald Peraza went down in order for the Yankees in the top of the third, as Kochanowicz was perfect through three innings. 

In the bottom of the third inning, Yarbrough retired the Angels in order and picked up two more strikeouts to put his total up to four on the night. 

Rice led off the top of the fourth inning with a line drive single to left field, which was the Yankees' first hit of the game. Grisham followed that up with a single right back up the middle. Judge then legged out an infield single to load the bases with nobody out. Then Beli worked a four-pitch RBI walk to make it a 1-1 game. A couple batters later, Volpe cleared the bases with a three-run double to make it a 4-1 Yankees lead. 

“Yeah, I just wanted to get something I could handle,  do the job, and get it up,” Volpe said. “He threw me one and I took advantage.”

Yarbrough picked up his seventh strikeout of the ballgame to help work a scoreless bottom of the fifth inning. 

Yarbrough worked an easy 1-2-3 bottom of the sixth inning on just 10 pitches thanks to a nice play from Peraza at third base. 

Yerry De Los Santos replaced Yarbrough on the mound in the bottom of the seventh inning and retired the Angels in order, picking up two strikeouts in the process. 

Ryan Yarbrough's final line: six innings pitched, two hits allowed, one earned run, one walk, and seven strikeouts on 88 pitches. Yarbrough threw his cutter 31%, the sweeper 22%, the sinker 19%, the changeup 19%, and the fastball 9% of the time. Yarbrough settled in really nicely after giving up a leadoff home run, putting together arguably his best start of the season, and going a season-high six innings. 

“I think it's just been having a really good approach,” Yarbrough said. “Talking with the pitching staff and Wells just about a great game plan of really mixing speeds, keeping them guessing up there, really getting ahead, and putting them in situations where they have to swing the bat, you know, no free passes. That's been the best part of it, and it's been a lot of fun.”

Volpe talked postgame about not being surprised by Yarbrough's success since being moved to the starting rotation. 

“It's amazing, I dont think anyone is really surprised,” Volpe said. “Because we have faced him on the other side, and it's not a fun at-bat. He's a bulldog, and every time he goes out there, we have so much confidence in him.”

Judge worked his second walk of the ballgame to lead off the top of the eighth inning, and Beli followed that up with his second single of the night. The next batter, Dominguez, reached on an E4 from Angels second baseman Kevin Newman to load the bases with nobody out. A couple batters later, Wells picked up a sac fly to extend the Yankees' lead to 5-1.

De los Santos remained in the game for the bottom of the eighth, gave up a leadoff single, and picked up a strikeout. Mark Letier Jr. then came in to replace De Los Santos. Leiter Jr. picked up a strikeout and a groundout to end the inning. 

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Luke Weaver replaced Letier Jr., pitching for his fifth time in the last seven days. Weaver worked into and out of trouble, stranding runners at the corners and working a scoreless inning to end this one 5-1 final. 

The Yankees will look to win the series tomorrow with Carlos Rodon on the mound, facing off against Tyler Anderson for the Angels. The first pitch will be at 9:38 p.m. ET on the YES Network. 

My thoughts on the game: Yarbrough had another great start, pitching six innings of one-run baseball with seven strikeouts. Volpe stayed hot after a great series in Colorado with a bases-clearing double. Beli had two more knocks tonight, as his .268 average and .812 OPS are funny enough, both better than Soto's .233 average and  .770 OPS.  De Los Santos looked nasty tonight, I’m starting to like him out of the bullpen. I would have liked to see them keep him in for a few more batters so we could have avoided using Weaver, who will now be unavailable tomorrow. On to tomorrow, as the Yankees will look to win the series with Rodon, who has been on a roll as of late on the mound.