'This is a low point': Rizzo, Yanks stumble to 1-4 since break - ESPN

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Aaron Judge changed into his street clothes and briefly sat on a folding chair in front of his locker on Tuesday night, more than four hours removed from the only baseball activities his injured toe will allow. It was another loss absorbed within another somber, muted New York Yankees clubhouse, where the only sounds were those of teammates trying to publicly explain why they still can't figure out how to win without their best player.

«The mood's down, for sure,» Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo said after a 5-1 loss to the Los Angeles Angels, his team's third in a row and fifth in the last six games. «I think we all expect — we definitely all expect — better of ourselves, individually and as a team. And it's OK to be down right now. It's a close group. This is a low point. We've been battling, but this is part of it.»

The Yankees began their second half by dropping two of three to a Colorado Rockies team that was on pace to lose 100 games for the first time in franchise history. Then they flew from Denver to Orange County, California, to face an Angels team that had lost 11 of its previous 13 games, and lost to them on back-to-back nights. The Yankees were blanked by Chase Anderson and his 6.89 ERA on Sunday, then managed three runs in a combined 13 innings against Griffin Canning and Patrick Sandoval, two members of an Angels rotation that had struggled mightily throughout July.

Since Judge sprained his right big toe on the concrete portion of the right-field fence at Dodger Stadium on June 3, the Yankees' offense has produced the majors' third-lowest OPS (.658) and third-fewest runs per game (3.78). On Monday night, in the midst of suffering consecutive walk-off losses in extra innings for the