Yankees drop fourth in row, this time to Angels

The Yankees brought their low-scoring and losing ways back from Beantown.

On a night that was so sweltering and steamy at the Stadium that Angels starter Dylan Bundy had to exit in the second inning after heat exhaustion caused him to vomit behind the mound, the Yankees sent the crowd of 25,054 into the night queasy after a 5-3 loss to Los Angeles.

The Yankees (40-38) have followed a 7-2 stretch with four straight losses and haven’t scored more than three runs in any of them. They allowed nine first-inning runs in that span and never led in any game.

The first three of those four losses were to Boston at Fenway Park during the weekend and had Aaron Boone saying in his pregame news conference that "the season is on the line."

Asked afterward what might get the Yankees untracked if "season on the line" couldn’t get the job done, Boone replied, "We’ve got to go do it. You can throw out all the sayings, [but] talk is cheap. We’ve got to go do it . . . We’ve got to go play tomorrow and try to dig ourselves out of this."

"We’ve got to go do it — words aren’t going to do anything," Giancarlo Stanton said. "A lot of variables or factors [have gone] into this. We just haven’t shown up every night. We have spurts of it, but this game, these seasons, this uniform isn’t about spurts. It’s about showing up every night. We’ve got to pick it up . . . We’re not performing the way we should."

The Yankees came back from a 2-0 deficit after the top of the first to tie it and later cut a 4-2 deficit to 4-3. Gio Urshela and Stanton hit solo home runs, but the Yankees were 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position.

They were particularly inefficient against Angels long man Jose Suarez, who came on for the ailing Bundy. He got DJ LeMahieu to ground out for the final out of the second and allowed only two hits and one run in the next five innings.

The run came on Stanton’s homer in the sixth, a 426-foot shot into the visitors’ bullpen in left-center that made the Yankees’ deficit 4-3.

Steve Cishek pitched a scoreless eighth and Raisel Iglesias struck out the side in the ninth for his 14th save.

The Angels lost superstar Mike Trout to a calf strain on May 17 yet have stayed afloat in large part to the two-way play of the spectacular Shohei Ohtani.

Since Trout got injured, Ohtani had a .298/.426/.750 slash line, 12 home runs and 27 RBIs in 34 games entering Monday. Those numbers, along with his season pitching mark of 3-1 and a 2.58 ERA, have put him in the early AL MVP conversation and made him a must-see attraction. He is scheduled to be the starting pitcher against the Yankees on Wednesday night.

For those who wanted to glimpse Ohtani’s considerable talents, it wasn’t a long wait. In the game’s second at-bat, he hit a 416-foot laser of a home run to rightfield on a hanging curve from Michael King. It was his 26th homer and had an exit velocity of 117 mph.

Jared Walsh added an RBI double later in the inning.

LeMahieu’s single and Aaron Judge’s double set the table for Gary Sanchez’ run-scoring groundout in the first and Urshela’s 10th home run, off Bundy in the second, tied the score at 2.

Anthony Rendon drove a one-out double to center in the fifth, took third on LeMahieu’s error and scored on Max Stassi’s groundout. It might have become an inning-ending double play, but LeMahieu had trouble corralling the smash and got only the out at second base.

Former Met Juan Lagares hit a two-out solo homer off Lucas Luetge for a 4-2 lead.

Jose Iglesias doubled off the wall in right to drive in Scott Schebler from first in the eighth. LeMahieu had a chance to get the out at the plate but airmailed the throw over Sanchez’s head.

By Roger Rubin

roger.rubin@newsday.com@rogrubin

Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.