Yankees start west coast trip strong, shut out Angels 7-0

Coming off a crucial series loss against the Toronto Blue Jays, the New York Yankees had a west coast trip looming. On Friday night, the Yankees didn’t waste any time looking to regain momentum on the the west coast, getting an early boost from Jacoby Ellsbury, which would lead to a 7-0 shutout victory over the Los Angeles Angels. On the third pitch of the game, Ellsbury hit a home run off of Angels pitcher Jered Weaver, which set the tone for the game. In the third inning, Ellsbury would hit a RBI double that scored Ronald Torreyes from second.

It also paved the way for Masahiro Tanaka to have a great outing. Tanaka retired the first 11 batters he faced, before Mike Trout hit a two-out single in the fourth inning to break up the streak. Tanaka went on to dominate the Angels, pitching 7 2/3 innings, surrendered five hits, and struck out nine.

In the fifth inning, the Yankees added to their 2-0 lead and crushed the ball aggressively against Weaver. The Yankees scored three runs in the inning off of three solo home runs that came from Torreyes, Didi Gregorius, and Brian McCann, who was in the lineup as the designated hitter, to make it a 5-0 lead.

The Yankees would go on to add two more runs in the sixth inning, getting a single from Torreyes, who had a 4-4 night with two RBI’s, and a RBI double from Gregorius off of Angels reliever Mike Morin, scoring Torreyes from first to complete the offensive outburst that’s been missing for the Yankees most of the season.

Including Friday’s game, the Yankees have had Weaver’s number. In five of the last seven games the Yankees have faced Jered Weaver, they’ve had multi home run games against him. The total amount of home runs during that stretch is 15. With the Yankees besting the Angels again this season, have also had the Angels number, now beating them in all five meetings this season, including a four game sweep in the Bronx earlier this year.

Game two of the three game set will be tomorrow night, with Luis Cessa, who’s replacing Nathan Eovoldi in the starting rotation, starting for the Yankees. Ricky Nolasco is scheduled to start for the Angels.