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Figgins hits walk-off, propels Angels to sweep of Yankees

Aug 10, 2008 - 11:44 PM ANAHEIM, California (Ticker) -- Chone Figgins ripped a walk-off single to right field with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning off Mariano Rivera, helping the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim complete a three-game sweep of the New York Yankees with a 4-3 victory on Sunday.

Mark Teixeira and Erick Aybar each drove in a run for Anaheim (74-43), which owns baseball's best record.

Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano and Bobby Abreu each drove in a run for the Yankees (63-55), who have lost five of their last seven games and trail the first-place Tampa Bay Rays (70-46) by eight games in the American League East.

Howie Kendrick led off the ninth with a single off Damaso Marte (0-2). The lefthander struck out Gary Matthews Jr., who was unsuccessful in two sacrifice attempts. After Marte walked Mike Napoli, Figgins laced Rivera's first pitch into right field for the game-winner.

"We just continue to play hard," Figgins said. "Anytime we can sweep any team it feels good because it means we are getting wins. Against a guy like Rivera I don't like to take pitches. I just wanted to be aggressive and find a hole. That was a perfect example of a seeing-eye single. It's like I saw it happen in slow motion, it was a perfect hit."

"We battled on both sides today and Joe (Saunders) did a great job minimizing damage," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "We got it done today and in the end we got a big win and completed the sweep. Figgy squeaked one through the infield for the game-winner. We just have to keep moving forward and playing hard."

Each team wasted prime opportunities to snap a 3-3 tie. Aybar ended the Angels' seventh inning when he was thrown out at second after oversliding the bag. In the eighth, New York's Alex Rodriguez hit a one-out double and was thrown out trying to steal third.

The Yankees were hoping Andy Pettitte could help them avoid the sweep. The lefthander was staked to a 2-0 lead in the first when the first three batters reached against Saunders and Abreu singled home a run. Rodriguez followed with an RBI double.

However, Anaheim answered with a three-run third. Figgins drove in a run with an infield single and two batters later Aybar singled and Teixeira lifted a sacrifice fly to right.

Pettitte allowed three runs and 10 hits in seven innings.

"Thought I threw the ball really good today," Pettitte said. "I wasn't able to stop the bleeding when they got guys on base. They can do it all and they have the best record in baseball for a reason. They are a good ballclub, no doubt about it. We just need to get at it and win some games."

"I felt like Andy was throwing the ball well today," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "These were all frustrating losses here and had the opportunity to win the game today but couldn't do it. We got to turn the page and get ready for Minnesota, who is playing good baseball right now. We need to win games and that's the bottom line."

Meanwhile, Saunders yielded three runs and six hits in seven innings. He labored through the first inning and needed 21 pitches to record the first out.

"I started off slow and having command issues with my pitches and locations and they got to me early," Saunders said. "After that I just wanted to settle down and try to keep them off the bases. We were fortunate to scratch off a win against a guy like Rivera out there."