Sloppy defense costly, Yankees open West Coast trip with 10-1 loss to Angels

The Yankees were defeated by the Los Angeles Angles 10-1 in the series opener on Monday night.

Elmer Rodriguez put together his best big-league outing to this point his last time out, but the Angels were able to take advantage of some ineffectiveness this time around. The youngster held them off the board in the first and the second, but two out hits in the third and fourth chased him from the ballgame.

All in all, he allowed four runs on four hits, three walks, two HBP, and five strikeouts over 3.2 innings.

The Yankee offense was held in check by Walbert Ureña over the first four-plus innings, but Spencer Jones provided them with some much-needed life, crushing a one out solo homer deep over the right-center wall in the top of the fifth to cut into the four-run deficit.

The youngster is up to eight home runs on the season, five of which have been over his last 30 games.

Michael Fulmer and New York's defense immediately gave that run back to the Angels. Christian Moore blooped in an RBI double that bounced away off of a sliding Jones' glove in shallow right, then scored a run of his own as a pair of throwing errors on a pickoff attempt brought him in from second.

Fulmer was charged with his first earned run across six outings since joining the Yankees.

Luis Gil was also hurt by the Yankee defense in his first MLB appearance as a reliever. Gil struck out three in his first frame, but not before Jose Caballero committed his second error in as many innings, forcing him to throw more pitches and bringing in LA's seventh run of the game.

Gil followed that with a scoreless second inning, working around a one out HBP.

David Bednar was called upon for the eighth inning in a six-run game, and he was roughed up pitching for just the second time over the last 10 days. Bednar gave up three runs, two of which scored on a Vaughn Grissom double, which gave him three hits and four RBI in the ballgame.

Coming into the night, Bednar had allowed just two runs (one earned) in August.

Other than Jones' homer the Yanks weren't able to get much else going against Ureña. The righty held them to just that one run on five hits while walking none and striking out eight batters across seven strong innings. His ERA is down to 2.85 during his impressive rookie campaign.

With the two miscues from Caballero, the Yanks lead MLB in errors from the shortstop position (39).

The youngster continued his great rookie season with seven innings of one-run ball.

Gerrit Cole (7-7, 3.19 ERA) takes the ball against Grayson Rodriguez (4-5, 6.03 ERA) in the middle-game on Tuesday at 9:38 p.m.