A team can get only three hits in a game and still win. The New York Yankees beat the Los Angeles Angels behind another strong pitching performance from Masahiro Tanaka and a wild pitch thrown by Nick Maronde, giving the AL East leaders a 3-2 win.

Tanaka didn’t pick up the win, but he lasted 6.1 innings to strike out 11 batters while giving up five hits and two runs. His 46 strikeouts through his first five starts are tied for the most by a Yankee pitcher, sharing the milestone with Bob Turley from 1955. His 46 strikeouts so far are the second most for any Yankees pitcher before the end of April, trailing David Cone (1997) by three K’s. He is also the third Yankees player to start a season with at least 7 strikeouts in each of his first 5 games. The others are CC Sabathia (first 5 in 2012) and Mike Mussina (first 7 in 2003).

The win went to Adam Warren, giving up just one hit in the 1.2 innings he was on the mound for, followed by David Robertson picking up his fourth save of the season, striking out a couple of batters in the final inning. It was actually a very good start for Garrett Richards, pitching seven strong innings, giving up only three hits and two runs. The loss went to Michael Kohn who came up after him.

It was an awful day at bat for the Yankees. Only 3-for-27, as mark Teixeira, Kelly Johnson and Brian Roberts were the only ones to get a hit. The scoring came in the 5th inning, as Ichiro Suzuki grounded out and Teixeira scored, tying the game. Teixeira hit a home run, only his second of the season, to counter the one from David Freese a bit earlier to make it a 2-2 game in the 7th. Then came the huge error from Maronde.

It was a combination of Maronde making a bad throw and Chris Iannetta having a bad day, or specifically a bad inning. The score tied at 2-2, Kohn walked Ellsbury and Beltran. Maronde came on, and then the game was lost. His breaking ball bounced just in front of the plate while Brian McCann was struggling, hitting Iannette and being a bit too far away for him to reach, while Ellsbury easily scored off of that mistake.

The Angels didn’t do much better at bat, finishing with 0-for-8 with runners in scoring positions. Mike Trout had a good game with a couple of hits but had no one to advance him further, as Albert Pujols finished with 0-for-3 on the day, as the Angels dropped to 11-13, failing to rebound from the 4-3 loss in the previous day, and coming up with just one win in the series.

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