Long ball sinks Yankees as Angels take finale

Apr 16, 2026; Bronx, New York, USA; New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone (17) argues with home plate umpire Will Little (93) during the eighth inning against the Los Angeles Angels at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images | Brad Penner-Imagn Images Some losses are harder than others and some splits feel more like a loss than a tie. For the Yankees on Thursday afternoon, a series filled with emotional swings finally tipped the wrong way, as a game that felt within reach for much of the afternoon slipped into a lopsided loss by the end.

After spending the first three games of the series surviving chaos, late rallies, and narrow escapes, the Yankees could not find one more answer in the finale. Instead, a tight contest turned in the sixth inning and unraveled completely late, allowing the Los Angeles Angels to leave the Bronx with an 11-4 win and a series split. The finale against the Los Angeles Angels opened with the same uneasy feeling that had defined much of the previous three games.

Max Fried quickly retired Zach Neto and the red-hot Mike Trout to open the afternoon, making it feel as though the Yankees might finally be headed toward the clean, stress-free game this series had stubbornly refused to provide. That calm disappeared almost instantly. A two-out walk came back to haunt Fried when former Yankees prospect Oswald Peraza turned on a fastball and sent it into the left-field seats, giving the Angels a 2-0 lead.

After spending much of the series making life miserable for his former organization, Peraza’s first at-bat was a reminder that the series was not over yet. The Yankees answered quickly. Aaron Judge continued doing Aaron Judge things in the bottom of the first, hammering a Brent Suter fastball into the Angels bullpen.