Jones, Chisholm Bomb Angels Early as Yankees Roll 7-3

Spencer Jones went 2-for-3 with a 398-foot home run, 3 RBI, and 2 runs scored as the Yankees beat the Angels 7-3 on September 2. New York put up three runs in the first inning alone — two of them on back-to-back home runs — and never truly relinquished control.

The Yankees came out swinging. Jones launched a 398-foot shot to center in the first, scoring Bellinger, and before Angels starter Grayson Rodriguez could exhale, Jazz Chisholm Jr. followed with a 341-foot blast to left. Just like that, it was 3-0 New York before the game had any real pulse. A third-inning run on a double play extended the lead to 4-0, and the story of the early innings looks like it was simple: Rodriguez couldn't put the Yankees away when he needed to, surrendering 7 hits and 4 earned runs over 6.0 innings despite punching out 7.

Angels fans got a reason to lean forward in the sixth. Christian Moore tripled to right, scoring Meckler and Ballesteros, and suddenly it was 4-3. That triple swung the home win probability from 17% to 41% — a 24-point jump — and appeared to breathe genuine life into a crowd that had been watching their team dig out of a four-run hole. Gerrit Cole had already exited after 5.1 innings, allowing 8 hits and 3 earned runs, so the Angels had real momentum and a bullpen matchup they could work with. For about two innings, this looked like a different game.

It wasn't. The Yankees answered in the eighth with the kind of quiet, suffocating efficiency that makes them hard to beat. Grisham singled to left, scoring Jones, and then Goldschmidt added a sacrifice fly to push it to 6-3. Jones came back around in the ninth — singling to left to score Bellinger and cap the scoring at 7-3. Chisholm finished 3-for-5 with a homer and 2 runs. Bellinger went 3-for-5 with 2 runs scored. On the Angels side, Meckler was the lone bright spot, going 3-for-4 with an RBI, but Moore's two-RBI triple in the sixth was ultimately a footnote rather than a turning point. Paul Blackburn and Brent Headrick combined for 2.2 scoreless innings out of the New York bullpen to close it out. The Yankees' offense did the damage early, their pen held the line late, and Los Angeles never had enough to close the gap.