Yankees out-duel Angels for sweep to head into Dodgers showdown on high note
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— Before the Yankees played a single inning at Angel Stadium this week, Aaron Boone was already being asked about the big showdown looming this weekend up I-5.“I’m looking out at the Angels right now, so that’s where my mind’s at,” Boone said Monday afternoon in the visiting dugout.With the Angels now swept out of the way, the attention can fully turn to the World Series rematch.The Yankees took care of business on Wednesday, finishing off a three-game sweep of the Angels on the back of another strong starting pitching performance, this one from Clarke Schmidt in a 1-0 win at Angel Stadium.Schmidt threw six shutout innings in which he scattered just four hits and one walk while striking out five, lifting the Yankees (35-20) to their fifth straight win heading into a weekend series with the Dodgers that begins on Friday.In relief of Schmidt, Ian Hamilton (1 ²/₃ innings) and Tim Hill bridged the gap to the ninth for Mark Leiter Jr.— on a night when Luke Weaver and Devin Williams both appeared to be unavailable — who delivered his second save of the season with a pair of strikeouts.Between Schmidt, Carlos Rodón and Ryan Yarbrough, Yankees starters in this series combined to pitch 19 innings in which they allowed just one run on 11 hits and two walks with 21 strikeouts.Part of that might be attributed to the state of the Mike Trout-less Angels (25-30), though they had won seven straight — including a sweep of the Dodgers — shortly before this series.But it is also more encouraging results for the Yankees rotation, which has now posted an MLB-best 2.54 ERA over its last 40 starts.
They have allowed one or zero earned runs in 22 of those starts, including nine of their last 13.Schmidt was coming off an ineffective start against the Rockies his last time out on Friday, in which he was somewha...