Shohei Who?

A rain-forced doubleheader, with another rain delay late in the opener, left me with little time to write up that game. Here goes:

Shohei Ohtani was the Angels' starting pitcher, and the designated hitter rule allowed him to leave the game as the pitcher and remain the DH. But he would not be the story of the game today, either on the mound or at the plate.

The story would be Nestor Cortes, who is having the kind of season that the Mets' Jacob deGrom can only dream of, full of run support. He pitched 7 shutout innings, allowing just 5 hits and 2 walks, striking out 7. He got support in the form of home runs from Matt Carpenter and Gleyber Torres in the 1st inning, and Aaron Judge in the 3rd; and an RBI double from Marwin González in the 4th.

Ohtani did not return to the mound in the 5th. He didn't have a good day offensively, either: He went 1-for-5, his hit a single in the 5th, and he was picked off 1st base by Cortes. Mike Trout didn't have a good day, either: A walk and 3 strikeouts.

The Yankees got 2 more runs in the 5th, including a home run by DJ LeMahieu. Clarke Schmidt allowed a run in the 8th, but after a rain delay of 1 hour and 10 minutes, Wandy Peralta pitched a scoreless 9th to end it. Yankees 6, Angels 1. WP: Cortes (5-1). SV: Peralta (1). LP: Ohtani (3-4).

Ohtani and Trout are widely considered the 2 best all-around players in the game right now. With this game, the Angels are 27-24, riding a 7-game losing streak, 6 games behind the Houston Astros in the American League Western Division. The Yankees are 35-15, leading the AL East by 5 1/2.

It's almost as if baseball pundits want to give credit to just about anybody -- the Angels, the Astros, the Tampa Bay Rays, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Boston Red Sox, the Atlanta Braves, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Mets -- anybody but the Yankees.

The series concludes within an hour after the posting of this entry. Jameson Taillon starts for the Bronx Bombers, Reid Detmers for the Halos.