Sean O’Sullivan gets plenty of support in Angels’ 10-2 win over Yankees
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Sean O’Sullivan, called up from triple-A Salt Lake to replace injured Scott Kazmir in the rotation, gave up only two runs and two hits in six innings Tuesday night, and Maicer Izturis, Mike Napoli and Hideki Matsui each hit two-run home runs to lead the Angels to a 10-2 victory over the New York Yankees in Yankee Stadium.
O’Sullivan’s third pitch of the game was lined into the right-field seats by Nick Swisher for a solo home run, and the Yankees added another run in the first inning on Jorge Posada’s bases-loaded fielder’s choice.
But Posada’s ground-ball out started a stretch in which O’Sullivan retired 12 consectutive batters before Brett Gardner walked with one out in the fifth. O’Sullivan then got Derek Jeter to bounce into a double play, and he retired the side in order in the sixth before giving way to reliever Scot Shields to start the seventh.
Izturis, playing his first game since suffering a slight tear in his left forearm on June 15, followed two-out singles by Napoli and Juan Rivera in the second with a run-scoring single to center, pulling the Angels to within 2-1.
Erick Aybar’s leadoff double and Torii Hunter’s two-out RBI single to center in the third made it 2-2, and after Rivera singled with one out in the fourth, Izturis lined a two-run homer over the short porch in right field for a 4-2 Angels lead.
The Angels made it 6-2 in the sixth when Matsui led off with a walk and Napoli stroked a two-run, opposite-field home run to right-center, his 17th homer of the season.
Matsui, who had only one homer since June 6, lined a two-run shot off reliever Chan-Ho Park to right field in the seventh inning to give the Angels an 8-2 lead and seal a win in the first of an important 12-game stretch against the Yankees, Texas Rangers and Boston Red Sox.
Napoli added a two-run single in the ninth. The first baseman was hitless in his final 14 at-bats before the All-Star break; he is 8 for 16 with two homers and six RBIs in four games since the break.
--Mike DiGiovanna in New York