A beautiful day for a ballgame in Anaheim. Would the Angels keep it beautiful and get a series win against the Rangers? It was a pitching matchup between two native Venezuelans, Martin Perez of Texas and Jose Suarez of the Halos.
Suarez got through the top of the 1st but not completely unscathed, partially due to a bad throw by Urshela, but also a walked batter. However, it didn’t come back to bite him this time, giving the Angels a 0-0 score to come up to the plate the first time.
In the bottom of the 1st, Taylor Ward walked, then gave up his spot on first base to Mike Trout on a fielder’s choice. Shohei followed with another ground ball, but the throw to second was late, giving Rendon two runners on base. He proceeded to make them pay with his first Kabuto hit of the season. Finally!
A couple of outs later and the inning was over, but Suarez was able to go out in the 2nd inning with a nice 3-lead cushion. Great!
Umm, or it seemed great until the pitches started being thrown. An instant Heim walk and homerun from Ezequiel Duran made it 3-2. Taveras singled, Semien doubled, and a sac fly by Robbie Grossman made it a tie game at 3. Well, that lead was sure nice while it lasted!
The Angels went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 2nd. In the top of 3rd, the Rangers were all over Suarez. A walk, passed ball, and 2 straight singles gave the Rangers a 5-3 lead. Then a 2-run homer by Josh H. Smith (!!!) made the score 7-3 Texas. Smith had just come into the game after Travis Jankowski came out of the game with an apparent injury.
Suarez then came out of the game with his own apparent injury. It was probably time to take him out anyway, as nothing was working for him today like every other day this year outside of last week’s gem in Milwaukee. Enter Chase Silseth, who ended the inning with a groundout. Great chance for a rotation audition, maybe?
After Martin Perez sat for so long in the top of the inning, the Angels greeted him in the bottom of the 3rd with Ward and Ohtani walks and a Trout single in between. Rendon came up clutch with a bloop hit into center to get 1 run back.
Then Renfroe did his job with a long sac fly to get another run home. However, Drury was the killjoy ending the inning with a double play. But, the Halos inched a bit closer. 7-5 Texas after 3 innings.
Unfortunately, Silseth wasn’t the cure to the ill. A 1 out walk was followed by a Garcia double. Jung then grounded a ball to Rendon who made a throw home that was a bit too late, but a freak kick of the Thaiss’ glove by the runner sent the ball to the Texas on-deck circle, scoring a second run.
Then Leody Taveras hit a long double to center that a younger Trout would’ve likely grabbed, but time does catch up with us all /end existential thoughts/. Yet another two run scored.
The inning then ended with a lineout. 11-5 Rangers after 5.
Luckily the Angels came back out swinging. Urshela led off with a solid single up the middle. After a flyout, Thaiss looped another single back into center. Taylor Ward then sent a hit the opposite way to bring in a run.
After Trout struck out looking on a high fastball, Shohei came through with a soft grounder up the middle to bring the Angels another run closer. Chipping away! That ended Perez’ streak of pitching at least 5 innings at 37 games.
Enter Josh Sborz. Rendon walked, giving Renfroe a chance to tie the game with a grand slam. But that would only be a dream scenario, not reality. 11-7 Texas after 4 innings.
Silseth came out and had a nice 1-2-3 inning in the top of the 5th. A one-out hit by Urshela was erased by a double play. The first uneventful inning of the day left the score unchanged.
In the top of the 6th, Garcia led off with a single, stole second, and moved to third base on a fly ball. Silseth did a great job though, getting 2 outs, and no runs scored.
Thaiss led off the bottom of the inning with a ground ball single, but a couple of pop-outs followed before Texas replaced Sborz with Cole Ragans. A walk by Rendon brought up Renfroe with the bases and two outs again. Once again, no runs would score. A pop-out ended the inning.
A single and walk ended Silseth’s day after 3 1/3 innings with 4 runs allowed but only one earned. That brought in Cerritos’ own Chris Devenski to try to keep Silseth from being charged with more runs. Marcus Semien and Robbie Grossman were having none of that. Two singles tacked on another two runs to close the book on Silseth. Then, for good measure, Adolis Garcia hit a 3-run homer to make the score 16-7 Rangers before the inning mercifully ended. The Angels then went down in order in the bottom half.
Nothing of note happened in the 7th and 8th, then Renfroe hit a meaningless 9th inning home run with nobody on base that we could’ve used in his earlier at-bats. We got 8 runs and 13 hits, very good! But allowed 16 runs and 17 hits, very bad! Astros come to town next and we are two games out of first. This isn’t the last you’ve seen of the Angels, you Rangers!!!!
