Heaney, Trout on target but Halos fall in NY

NEW YORK -- Left-hander Andrew Heaney extended his run of brilliant pitching and Mike Trout homered, but it wasn't enough to topple the Yankees, who used a go-ahead home run from rookie Gleyber Torres to secure a 2-1 win over the Angels in Friday night's series opener at Yankee Stadium.
Torres, who is considered a front-runner for the American League Rookie of the Year Award along with Shohei Ohtani, homered off veteran Jim Johnson to break a 1-1 tie in the seventh, becoming the youngest player in AL history to homer in four consecutive games.
The Angels came back to threaten in the eighth after Justin Upton drew a one-out walk off David Robertson to put the tying run on first, but Albert Pujols lined out and Yankees manager Aaron Boone then summoned closer Aroldis Chapman to face the left-handed-hitting Ohtani.
Chapman -- one of the few pitchers in the Majors who throws harder than Ohtani -- fell behind, 2-0, and allowed Upton to advance to second on a wild pitch, but Ohtani fouled his next pitch straight back and then ripped a 100.3 mph fastball down the left-field line that sliced just foul for strike two. The momentous at-bat came to an end when Ohtani grounded out on another blazing fastball from Chapman, quashing the Angels' rally.

"It was a big situation," Ohtani said through interpreter Ippei Mizuhara. "Obviously, I really wanted to get a base hit, but I wasn't able to come through. All his pitches were really fast, really powerful. Some of the contact I made I thought was pretty good contact."
Chapman came back out for the ninth and retired the Angels in order to convert a four-out save and seal the Yankees' win. The Angels (28-23) have now lost all four games against the Yankees this season after being swept in Anaheim last month.
The Angels squandered another strong outing from Heaney, who allowed one run on four hits over 6 1/3 innings. Heaney, who walked three and struck out five in the 97-pitch effort, has logged a 1.45 ERA over his past six starts, but the Angels have won only two of those games.
"It's a good feeling to give the team a chance to win," Heaney said. "Obviously, we didn't come out on the right side, but I kept us in it and that's all they can ask for, that's all I can ask for."
The Yankees tested Heaney in the second inning after Miguel Andújar walked to load the bases with two outs. That brought up Torres, who shot a grounder just inside the third-base line. Zack Cozart backhanded it and fired to first, but Torres beat out the throw, allowing Didi Gregorius to score from third to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead. Aaron Hicks then tried to score from second after the ball rolled away from Albert Pujols, but Pujols threw him out at the plate to end the inning.

The Angels nearly tied it in the third after Kole Calhoun tried to score from second on Upton's two-out single to right field, but Aaron Judge unleashed a perfect 100.5-mph throw to Gary Sánchez, who tagged out Calhoun to keep them off the board. Judge later threw out Martín Maldonado at second in the seventh.
The Angels wouldn't be denied in the fifth, however, as Trout deposited a 98.5-mph fastball from Yankees right-hander Luis Severino into the upper deck in right field for an opposite-field shot that tied the game, 1-1. It was Trout's club-leading 16th home run of the season.

Heaney stumbled into another bases-loaded jam in the fifth, but he emerged unscathed by coaxing a popout from Giancarlo Stanton to end the inning. He needed only eight pitches to breeze through a 1-2-3 sixth, but Heaney then told pitching coach Charlie Nagy that he felt he was nearing his endpoint.
"I just told Nags, 'Hey, I'd be lying if I wasn't a little bit low on the gas tank,'" Heaney said. "Just mentally, physically."
Heaney took the mound for the seventh and struck out Tyler Austin on three pitches before manager Mike Scioscia decided to turn it over to the bullpen. Johnson retired Andujar on a lineout but then surrendered the tie-breaking homer to Torres, who hammered a low-and-away sinker out to right-center field.

"I think there's going to be a time to stretch some guys [and] there's a time to make sure these guys come out and are ready to go," Scioscia said. "I do think [Heaney] was getting a little bit tired, and it was not a night where we need him to go out there and throw [the] 110, 115 pitches it might have taken. He got to a great point in the game for us, and we just couldn't get out of the seventh."
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