Shohei Ohtani’s 2 home runs not enough for Angels after Andrew Heaney’s rough start

NEW YORK — For all of Shohei Ohtani’s wonders at the plate, he couldn’t overcome the Angels’ poor pitching on Tuesday night.

He’ll have the chance to take care of that himself on Wednesday.

A night before he was set to pitch, Ohtani hit two homers in the Angels’ 11-5 loss to the New York Yankees.

Ohtani now leads the majors with 28 homers, including four in his last three games and nine in his last 10 games. His 13 homers in June equaled the Angels’ record for homers in any month.

With the Angels two games shy of the midpoint of the season, Ohtani is on pace to break Troy Glaus’ franchise record for homers: 47 in 2000.

Remarkable as all of that is, it wasn’t enough to prevent the Angels from a loss because Andrew Heaney was charged with seven runs in three-plus innings, and then reliever James Hoyt gave up three more in the fourth.

Heaney allowed homers to Gary Sanchez, Aaron Judge and Miguel Andujar, and he also walked four.

In his last start, Heaney gave up four runs in the first inning – mostly because of an outfield misplay – but he came back to finish six innings with only one more run scoring.

This time Heaney never found his rhythm.

He allowed a solo homer in the first, and the Angels then gave him a one-run lead after a two-run homer by José Iglesias – the first of his three hits – in the top of the second.

In the bottom of the inning, Heaney issued a one-out walk to Gio Urshela and then he gave up a single to Andujar, sending Urshela to third. Brett Gardner hit a foul ball that left fielder Scot Schebler caught while reaching into the stands. A run scored on the play to tie the game.

An out away from escaping the inning, Heaney gave up a run-scoring single to DJ LeMahieu and then a two-run homer to Judge.

After allowing an Andujar homer and a walk to start the fourth, Heaney was pulled.

Hoyt, just called up from Triple-A before the game, then let things get out of hand by allowing four consecutive hitters to reach with two outs, putting the Angels in a 10-3 hole.

Ohtani’s second homer of the night, a two-run laser into the right field seats, cut the deficit to 10-5. Ohtani hit a solo homer in the third inning.

More to come on this story.