Surging Yankees sweep Angels

The Angels aren’t hitting, aren’t scoring, aren’t winning.

There’s one other thing they aren’t doing, not even after another low-octane loss that gave the New York Yankees a three-game sweep at Angel Stadium.

“I’m not panicking,” infielder Zack Cozart said after Sunday’s 2-1 loss.

“We’re not panicking. We just haven’t put together a lot of innings where you get a lot of stuff going on.”

The Angels opened the season 13-3, a 16-game pace unmatched in the franchise’s 58-year history.

They were led by a hammering offense and a hammer of a bullpen.

But they’ve now dropped nine of 12, mostly because of bats that have significantly cooled.

In those dozen games, the Angels have scored only 27 runs, and eight of those came during one game.

The’ve been limited to six hits or fewer in 10 of the 12, including Sunday.

“It’s weird when you see a lot of guys scuffling at the same time,” Cozart said.

“Right now, we’re just in a little funk.”

The Angels were hitless in six at-bats with runners in scoring position, left nine men on base and struggled to get heavy contact against New York starter CC Sabathia.

Even when they scored it wasn’t very spectacular.

The sixth inning began with a Justin Upton ground ball that crawled perfectly into a soft spot of the infield for a single.

Albert Pujols followed with one of the least-splendid of his 2,996 career hits, a broken-bat, alley-oop lob that barely eluded the glove of New York shortstop Didi Gregorius.

A hustling Upton advanced to third on the play, but his teammates were little help. It actually was a wild pitch from Sabathia that brought home Upton and moved Pujols into scoring position.

Andrelton Simmons and Cozart, however, were unable to deliver the hit that could have tied the score, setting up the Angels for one final instance of coming up short.

In the eighth, Mike Trout led off with a walk and, after two outs, Simmons singled, putting the fastest Angel in scoring position.

But Cozart couldn’t bring Trout home, striking out against reliever Chad Green.

“We’re going to be fine,” manager Mike Scioscia insisted. “We have a lot of confidence in these guys. We’ll get it going.”

The Angels’ most impressive late-inning at-bat probably belonged to Pujols and officially went as nothing more than a fly out to left.

The eighth-inning drive left Pujols’ bat at 107 mph and, according to Statcast, had an 84% chance of being a hit. Brett Gardner caught it falling backward on the warning track.

Albert Pujols hits a single, inching him closer to 3,000 hits.

(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press )

“Albert, he killed that ball,” Scioscia said.

“He hit that ball as hard as a person can hit that ball.”

The lack of offense and one misplaced pitch pinned the loss on starter TylerSkaggs, who deserved a better ending.

He struck out eight and gave up only two hits; only two other balls left the infield.

Unfortunately forSkaggs, the first hit was a double and, immediately thereafter, there was a second hit that landed well beyond the outfield

Gary Sanchez’s homer traveled an estimated 447 feet and put the Yankees up 2-0.

On this night, that would be just enough.