Angels Pound Yanks, Reduce Magic Number to Two.

Anaheim - A weird night on many levels for the Yankees and the Angels.

A multi-homer game from an unexpected (sort of) source.

A skirmish between two of the games veteran ambassadors.

To start, Jon Garland did his normal thing. Of late, the pitcher has started rough, settled down, and pitched great games.

Tonight was no different.

The Yankees jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first on A-Rod's RBI single.

The Angels countered in the first, and from there it was close.

For a while.

Rookie Brandon Wood hit a solo home run, his second of the season, and also of his last three games. Long a power hitting minor leaguer, the prospect has struggled adapting to major league pitching.

Tonight, however, wasn't one of those nights, as the rookie added his second home run of the ballgame in the eighth inning.

But the whole thing went all wacky in the sixth.

First, Rookie Sean Rodriguez, another youngster with some pop, led off the inning with a solo shot.

Chone Figgins was hit by a pitch, took third on Garrett Anderson's single, and scored on Mark Teixeira's ground-out.

That was the end of the night for Yankee starter Carl Pavano, but the Yankees weren't out of the inning yet.

Vlad Guerrero destroyed a ball over both dugouts in left field, and Torii Hunter singled up the middle.

Then he stole second.

Then he stole third.

Maybe that's why Pudge Rodriguez, the Yankee catcher and future hall-of-famer, took exception.

Hunter got caught in a rundown from third on Mike Napoli's grounder, lightly bumping a positioned Rodriguez and was out. As Hunter was seemingly picking up Napoli's bat, Pudge gave him a little elbow.

Torii took extreme exception to said elbow, and walked after Rodriguez, shoving him from behind with two hands.

Benches cleared, bullpens emptied, and people were restrained, including a very incensed and emotional Rodriguez. In the skirmish that followed, Rodriguez launched an open handed swing at Hunter, misfiring into the pile of people trying to separate the two.

Both players were ejected, and tempers cooled. Reports after the game said both players had spoken and apologized for the incident, and all was over.

Yankee pitching coach Dave Eiland apparently was excited from the fracas, and nearly fainted in the Yankee dugout. An Angels team physician attended to him, and all reports were that he was fine, and simply light headed following the scrum.

Angels Rookie Call up Kevin Jepsen made his Major league debut pitching for the Angels in the 8th. The rookie faced Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu and Alex Rodriguez and shut down the powerful hitting Yankees 1,2,3. Jepsen seemingly played with a bulls-eye on his chest, however, as Jeter's grounder caught the pitcher in the foot. Jepsen recovered and made a nice play to first for the out. He then had to duck out of the way of Abreu's line drive, but was rescued by shortstop Brandon Wood for the out.

All told, the Angels scored 6 runs in the 6th.

They added a few more in the seventh, two of which came when Gary Matthews Jr, batting for the ejected Hunter, hit a two run double to center.

Wood's homer in the eighth was the final, of many, nails in the Yankees coffin.

Final Score Angels 12, Yankees 1.