The Angels feel like a slightly different team right now. After a few reworkings of the lineup, the team is younger, quicker, and playing better baseball. More importantly, they are making contact more consistently 1 through 9.
There wasn’t a ton of contact early in the game as Rays starter Griffin Jax kept the Angels hitters off balance. But on the other side, Jose Soriano was putting up zeroes for the Angels.
After Jo Adell doubled, Nolan Schanuel scorched a ball to shortstop that found its way to the grass and scored the game’s first run.
That score held until the bottom of the sixth inning when newcomer Denzer Guzman had his first really big hit for the team. A two run single with two outs off Crag Kimbrel pushed the score to 3-0 Angels.
I have a feeling Angels prospects deal with an effect similar to the Coors Field hangover when they get promoted to the big league club. Guzman is clearly seeing the ball better the last couple of games and I hope this is the start of him playing up to his abilities.
The 3-0 score did not last long. Another newcomer, Donovan Walton, singled in the following at bat to push the score to 4-0 in the bottom of the 6th inning.
Jose Soriano only pitched 5 frames tonight. He took a comebacker earlier in the game and might have been removed for precautionary reasons. Samy Natera Jr. pitched two scoreless frames after Soriano’s departure.
Then yet another mid season call up Jose Siri hit a two run blast in the bottom of the 7th to crack the game open and push the Angels lead to 6-0. Not only did Siri break out the lumber against his former team, he also flashed the leather and robbed them of a home run.
From there the beatdown was on. Denzer Guzman drove in another run to push the score to 7-0 and once again Walton followed him with an RBI hit. It was 8-0 in the bottom of the 7th.
After 7 innings, the Angels had out hit the Rays 14 to 3 and it was the Rays, not the Angels, who were charged with the lone error in the game.
Brent Suter breezed through the top of the 8th before Kirby Yates was unleashed to make sure the Rays scored. Alas, pitching in a blowout Yates was capable of putting up a zero himself.
An absolutely dominant win tonight and the Angels win the series against the Rays. Tomorrow Grayson Rodriguez will be on the hill as the Angels go for the sweep.
