Noah Syndergaard struggles against Yankees
Noah Syndergaard of the Angels looks on during the first inning against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Noah Syndergaard’s return to New York on Tuesday night went pretty poorly. At least it happened at Yankee Stadium and not Citi Field.
Syndergaard was lit up for five runs and seven hits in 2 1/3 innings as the Yankees trounced the former Mets righthander and his new team, the Angels, 9-1.
Syndergaard signed a one-year, $21 million contract with Los Angeles after throwing two innings for the Mets at the end of last season. His last three outings have alternated between awful and awesome and then, on Tuesday, only slightly better than awful.
Two starts ago, he lasted just two-thirds of an inning against Texas. But Syndergaard came back next time out to allow one run in eight innings to the Rangers.
On Tuesday, he walked one, didn’t strike out a batter and was pulled after 45 pitches. Overall, Syndergaard is 4-3 with a 4.02 ERA.
“I was definitely feeling a little bit of pressure, a little tension [in the] first inning,” he said. “Baseball’s just a funny thing. You can have a really good start and then six days later, it’s the complete opposite.”
Syndergaard clarified that he didn’t feel any extra pressure making his first New York start since leaving the Mets.
“Not really,” he said. “City’s the same. Still an awesome place. Still enjoyed my off day [Monday] by going to Central Park and playing catch with [pitcher] Reid [Detmers]. So that was nice.”
Syndergaard said he feels “really good” physically, but added that his upper body felt “tense ... and it’s kind of hard to deliver a quality pitch when you’re just really tight out there.”
If Syndergaard’s comments seem confusing, perhaps that’s because they were. He felt pressure, but not because it was New York. He felt tense in his upper body, but feels good physically.
The Angels, who are using a six-man rotation to keep Syndergaard’s and two-way star Shohei Ohtani’s innings under control, have six days to figure it all out.
“My prep work in-between starts felt really good,” Syndergaard said. “But you go out there and you’re just pressing the whole time, tension, trying to really throw the ball through a garden hose as opposed to just being free and easy and letting it rip. I was really kind of aiming the ball out there and fell behind in counts and they capitalized on my mistakes.”
The Yankees scored four in the first on RBI doubles by Anthony Rizzo and Gleyber Torres and a two-run homer by Matt Carpenter.
DJ LeMahieu had a run-scoring double in the second to make it 5-0. Torres led off the third with a single and Miguel Andujar hit a fly ball to center on Syndergaard’s final pitch.
The Angels have lost six in a row.
“It’s pretty obvious the team’s on a little bit of a skid right now,” Syndergaard said. “It would have been nice to have come out and turned that around. But dropped the ball pretty seriously and didn’t get the job done.”
If the Angels hold to their current rotation, Syndergaard is lined up to face the Mets on June 12. That game will be in Anaheim.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
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