NEW YORK
The Angels got the monkey off their backs – only to run into King Kong.
The New York Yankees, baseball’s $200 million gorilla, ended the Angels’ post-season run with a 5-2 defeat in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series Sunday night.
The win sends the Yankees into the World Series for the 40th time in franchise history, this time against the Phillies.
For the Angels, the loss sends them into a winter of uncertainty with the list of potential free-agent departures including key players like Vladimir Guerrero, John Lackey, Chone Figgins and Bobby Abreu.
In the end, the Angels were done in by an offense that couldn’t keep up with Yankees’ deep lineup. They were outscored 32-18 in the six games and at the end their best hitter was … Jeff Mathis?
Mathis led off the third inning Sunday with his fifth double in the series. Two outs later, Abreu drove him in with an RBI single to right when Yankees starter Andy Pettitte hung an 0-and-1 curveball.
That was just about the only mistake Pettitte made in the game.
The Angels’ only other scoring threat against him came in the sixth inning after Pettitte retired the first two batters, the slumping Figgins and Abreu once again failing to set the table for the middle of the order. Torii Hunter beat out an infield single and went to third when Guerrero hit a pitch nearly off the ground and dropped it into right field for a double.
But Kendry Morales bounced back to the mound, Pettitte knocking it down near his face and throwing Morales out at first to end the inning.
Already the all-time leader in post-season starts and innings pitched, Pettitte became the winningest pitcher in post-season history (breaking a tie with John Smoltz at 15) by holding the Angels to just that one run on seven hits and a walk in 6 1/3 innings.
Angels starter Joe Saunders walked a tightrope through three innings to match Pettitte, stranding six runners on base in that time. But he tripped up in the fourth and never made it out.
With Mathis and Morales having given him a 1-0 lead, Saunders walked Robinson Cano to start the fourth then gave up a ground-ball single to left to Nick Swisher (batting .103 in the post-season when the game started).
Melky Cabrera bunted the runners over and Saunders walked Derek Jeter to load the bases. Johnny Damon singled in two runs to give the Yankees the lead and Mark Teixeira reloaded the bases on an infield single.
Working carefully to Alex Rodriguez, Saunders fell behind in the count 3-and-1 then threw a fastball at the knees. But home-plate umpire Dale Scott called it ball four, forcing in another run.
The walk was Saunders’ fifth in the game and Angels manager Mike Scioscia pulled him.
The game stayed close into the eighth thanks to Darren Oliver and Ervin Santana and the Angels briefly made it a one-run game, 3-2, when Guerrero drove in his seventh run of the post-season with a two-out RBI single off Mariano Rivera in the eighth.
It was the first post-season earned run off the Yankees closer since Game 2 of the 2000 World Series against the Mets.
But the momentum didn’t last. The Angels misplayed two bunts in the bottom of the eighth – Howie Kendrick dropped one throw and Scott Kazmir threw the other over Kendrick’s head – leading to two more Yankee runs without benefit of a hit. The errors were the seventh and eighth of the series by the Angels (seven in the three games at Yankee Stadium).
Wow. I bet some of you never thought it would end this way.
offseason moves clearly indicated a changing of the guard atop the AL West (just ask PECOTA).
