Baseball is a fickle mistress. After a glorious 3 game sweep of the Dodgers, the Angels headed to Sacramento and promptly laid an egg against the Athletics.
Yusei Kikuchi only lasted 4 innings and was tagged for 4 runs. He walked 3 and gave up 2 HR while only getting 3 strikeouts. High early pitch counts have been an issue for him all season and tonight he threw 94 pitches to complete 4 frames.
Zach Neto’s mojo is still on a roll, however, and he did his best to bring the Angels back in this game. He notched his 20th HR of the season to bring the Angels to 4-3 in the top of the 5th.
Unfortunately, Connor Brogdon had a rare horrible outing gave those 2 runs back in the bottom half of the frame. The A’s led 6-3 after 5 innings and extended the lead in the bottom of the 8th to 10-3. At that point the game was as good as done.
Angels lose 10-3 and fall back to 4 games under .500. Game 2 from Sacramento is tomorrow evening.
The Angels had won all previous 7 matchups against the A’s and are now 7-1 against our AL rival on the season.
