NEW YORK — José Soriano delivered exactly what the Angels needed.
Soriano pitched seven scoreless innings as the Angels pulled out a 1-0, 11-inning victory over the New York Yankees on Monday night, snapping their three-game losing streak.
“Awesome,” Manager Ron Washington said. “From Soriano all the way till I gave the ball to (Hunter) Strickland, they all came in and did a tremendous job against a good hitting lineup.”
The Yankees have been the best hitting lineup in the American League, and on Monday they finally added slugger Giancarlo Stanton, who had been out with an injury all season.
The Angels still shut them down, despite the Yankees having a runner at second base with no outs four times, including their automatic runners in the 10th and 11th.
The Angels (34-37) didn’t do much offensively, failing to score until Nolan Schanuel’s one-out opposite field double in the 11th. The Yankees were playing the left-handed hitting Schanuel to pull the ball, and he poked a grounder inside third base.
“One of the best feelings,” Schanuel said of the go-ahead hit. “It’s what we live for.”
There was still work to do in the bottom of the inning, though.
After an intentional walk to Aaron Judge – which put the winning run on base – left-hander Brock Burke got Cody Bellinger on a deep fly ball. That sent Paul Goldschmidt to third. Jasson Dominguez broke his bat on a blooper to second baseman Christian Moore, who threw Goldschmidt out at the plate.
An infield hit loaded the bases with two outs, but Strickland then entered and needed one pitch to Anthony Volpe to get the game-ending grounder.
By converting in the 11th, the Angels made sure that they didn’t waste Soriano’s gem.
Soriano gave up six hits, striking out six and walking one, in a 101-pitch performance, cutting his ERA to 3.54 in his second season as a major league starter.
“I feel great,” Soriano said through an interpreter. “I feel great. I feel great because I’ve been working hard to have these kind of outings, and everything went well.”
Soriano backed up a dominating outing last week against the Athletics with another stellar performance. He allowed one run in 14 innings in the two games, becoming the first Angels pitcher to work seven innings in consecutive starts this season.
“It’s gonna take more time, but he has developed,” Washington said. “He has shown back-to-back days that he had the ball, the consistency of what he could do. Now he’s just got to start sustaining it. We always knew he had good stuff, and he’s only in the second year of starting, so there’s still a lot for him to learn. But I tell you what, he has it.”
Soriano was only in one real jam, when he gave up back-to-back one-out singles in the first inning. He got Bellinger and Stanton on groundouts to escape.
Soriano also give up a leadoff double to Jazz Chisholm Jr. in the second, only to retire the next three.
All of that served only to stay even with Yankees right-hander Clarke Schmidt, who once against dominated the Angels.
He shut out the Angels over six innings last month at Angel Stadium, and this time he didn’t allow a run in seven innings.
In the first inning, both Zach Neto and Mike Trout bounced ground balls up the middle for singles. Taylor Ward hit a pop-up and Jorge Soler struck out.
After that, the Angels didn’t have another baserunner until Schanuel’s bloop single in the sixth.
Although they weren’t getting on base, they were at least doing a better job than usual of making contact. The Angels, who have been among the major league leaders in strikeouts all season, struck out just three times against Schmidt.
The Angels had a chance in the ninth, when Trout and Jorge Soler singled. But Logan O’Hoppe grounded out.
In the bottom of the ninth, the Angels worked around a leadoff double with Kenley Jansen on the mound. Third baseman Luis Rengifo fielded a ground ball and in one motion tagged Jasson Dominguez sliding into the third.
Right-hander Ryan Zeferjahn then retired three in a row in the bottom of the 10th, which prevented Judge from coming to the plate.
The Angels intentionally walked Judge twice. In his other three trips, he had a single and a 401-foot fly out to center field.
“We buckled down and did what we had to do with the hitters we had up there,” Washington said. “I’m glad the opportunity presented itself that I didn’t have to throw to to Judge. And that was the one thing I was concerned about all night. Every opportunity I had that I didn’t throw to him and it worked out for us. The one time we threw to him, he almost hit it over the center field wall.”