NEW YORK -- It was vintage Kyle Hendricks.
Despite a fastball that never even reached 90 mph, Hendricks baffled the Yankees with nine strikeouts over six scoreless innings to lift the Angels to a 4-0 win on Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium.
It was the highest strikeout total for the 12-year veteran since he struck out 10 for the Cubs against the Twins on Sept. 18, 2020. It also gave the Angels back-to-back shutouts, marking the first time the Yankees were held scoreless in consecutive home games by one team since the Blue Jays from Aug. 8-9, 2015, and Los Angeles’ first time with two straight shutouts in the Bronx since May 12-13, 1999.
“That was as Kyle Hendricks as it gets right there,” said catcher Logan O’Hoppe. “He’s special for a reason and has pitched a long time for a reason. I’m definitely grateful to be a part of it, and I definitely learned a lot.”
Hendricks relied heavily on his changeup, throwing it 42 times out of his 98 pitches to go along with 39 sinkers, 14 four-seamers and three curveballs. He registered 13 swings and misses, including five with the sinker and four each with the changeup and four-seamer.
Hendricks got ahead of hitters, throwing first-pitch strikes to 15 of the 23 batters he faced. He also avoided hard contact and had his control working, as he had allowed just four hits and one walk and threw 70 strikes.
“That's where I got to be,” said Hendricks, who has a 4.79 ERA in 14 starts. “I don’t have much margin for error. But there were really no pitches over the middle [of the] plate, maybe like two or three, and I got away with them, just because of what we had done and established.”
Hendricks also had no trouble with superstar Aaron Judge, who went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts against him. Hendricks struck out Judge looking with a changeup in the first and swinging on a changeup in the sixth.
“Just don't throw anything over the middle, that's for sure,” Hendricks said of his plan against the reigning American League Most Valuable Player. “But I kind of got lucky there, too. A couple chases. Established some heaters in there, and he chased one up. He chased one in, and [I] just threw some good changeups.”
It was also Hendricks’ first time working with O’Hoppe since April 25, as he had thrown to Travis d’Arnaud in each of his previous nine starts with a 5.47 ERA over that span. Hendricks and fellow veteran Yusei Kikuchi had been using d’Arnaud as their personal catcher, but O’Hoppe is expected to start catching more of their starts.
“It was fun working with Hop, it'd been a while,” Hendricks said. “We were just on the same page from pitch one. It felt really good.
“I went in with a good plan, and just kind of saw what they were doing to us. Getting ahead was a big key, establishing my fastball, especially inside to some of them, to get them to respect it a little bit. And then just being down, establishing both the fastball and the changeup, and then picking the spots where we needed to go up to change eyesight.”
O’Hoppe had been scuffling offensively, but he doubled in the second to snap a career-long 15-game streak without an extra-base hit. He then scored the game’s first run on an RBI single from Luis Rengifo.
The Angels added a couple more runs in the third on a two-run single from Taylor Ward with the bases loaded and an insurance run in the seventh on an RBI groundout from Nolan Schanuel.
“It felt really good,” O’Hoppe said of his double. “I’m still feeling some things out. Obviously, it didn't click by any means, but it was a good feeling to put a good swing on a good pitch.”
Hendricks never really found himself in much trouble, as the Yankees never had more than one baserunner against him in any inning and never had a runner reach past second base.
After allowing a two-out single to Giancarlo Stanton in the sixth, Hendricks was visited at the mound by manager Ron Washington, who gave him a pep talk and left him in the game. Hendricks got Jazz Chisholm Jr. to ground out to second to end the inning and conclude his strong outing before relievers Ryan Zeferjahn, Reid Detmers and Hunter Strickland did the rest.
“[Hendricks] was outstanding,” Washington said. “It was up, down, in, out, changed speeds, moved it around, kept them off balance. He was really good out there tonight. And we needed everything he gave us.”