ANAHEIM — Six years after Mike Mayers made his first major league start, with disastrous results, he finally got a chance to try it again, and he worked five scoreless innings.

He could only enjoy that one for six days.

Mayers gave up seven runs in four innings in the Angels’ 7-4 loss to the New York Yankees on Tuesday night, ending the team’s four-game winning streak.

Mayers gave up three homers, including a back-breaking three-run homer by Aaron Judge, his MLB-leading 51st of the year, in the fourth inning.

Back in 2016, Mayers gave up nine runs in a start in his big league debut, and then he became a reliever. Although he’d started a couple of games as an opener in the subsequent years, his next chance at a traditional start didn’t come until last week against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Mayers pitched well enough against the Rays to earn another shot, but he didn’t have much success against the Yankees.

“They get paid to hit just like we get paid to pitch,” Mayers said. “They were better than I was tonight.”

Manager Phil Nevin said Mayers’ lacked command, and he also got burned when the Angels made an error that led to two runs in the third.

“Too too many in the middle, but we could have finished a play for him and it would have been a different story,” Nevin said.

The balls in the middle were homers by Andrew Benintendi in the first inning and Anthony Rizzo in the second.

In the third, Mayers issued a pair of walks to load the bases with two outs. Josh Donaldson hit a grounder that third baseman Luis Rengifo snagged with a diving stop. Rengifo popped to his feet and had plenty of time to throw out Donaldson, but his throw was in the dirt. First baseman Mike Ford couldn’t catch the one-hopper, and two runs scored.

Mayers went back to the mound in the fourth, got two quick outs, but couldn’t get the third before the damage had been done. After back-to-back singles by DJ LeMahieu and Benintendi, Mayers threw a fastball at the top of the strike zone and Judge crushed it the other way, clearing the right field fence.

Mayers said he regretted the pitches to Benintendi and Rizzo, but he actually executed what he wanted to Judge, even though he still hit it out.

Nevin agreed that it was an example of how good Judge has been this season.

“He’s in a groove right now,” Nevin said. “You can just see watching his swing from the side, how on time he is. Everything’s in a good place. He’s hard to pitch to.”

The Angels will now have to decide if they want to give Mayers another try in this spot next week – against the Detroit Tigers – or give someone else a shot.

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While Mayers put the Angels in too deep of a hole, they at least got some encouraging performances from the lineup.

Catcher Max Stassi blasted a two-run homer in the second inning, his first homer since Aug. 5. Stassi had just one hit in his previous 39 at-bats.

Ford also hit his second homer in as many games, to go with a single. The Angels plucked Ford off waivers earlier this month, and now he’s in line to be the everyday first baseman because Jared Walsh is out for the season.

The Angels also got five strong innings of relief from Touki Toussaint, who gave up just one hit and no runs. Toussaint had allowed nine runs in 5-1/3 innings in his previous three outings, which is one of the reasons that the Angels picked Mayers instead of Toussaint for this start.