Freeway Series belongs to the Angels after 7-4 win
It took the Angels two weeks to score seven runs in a game this season and another week to do it again.
They’ve now done it thrice this week and six times in their last eight games, after Thursday’s 7-4 trouncing of the Dodgers at Angel Stadium, their sixth win in seven tries and third out of four in the Freeway Series.
“We’re swinging the bats better,” Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said. “That’s absorbing some of our pitching.”
It is better than before, but the quality of their pitching continues to vacillate.
To lead off Thursday’s game, Chase Utley held out his bat and met with Jhoulys Chacin’s incoming fastball. He dabbed it down the first-base line, scampered successfully to the base, and then made his way around without a ball leaving the infield. Chacin’s second wild pitch of the inning gave the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.
Utley looped a one-out single to left in the third, and advanced to second on a fielder’s choice, then third on a Corey Seager infield single. Up next, Howie Kendrick laced the first pitch down the right-field line, just foul. Joc Pederson kicked his leg up in frustration from the on-deck box.
Two pitches later, Kendrick tripled to the same part of the field, scoring two runs, and Pederson held his arms up happily. Chacin then retired him to end the inning and held up his glove for a few angry words as he walked off the field.
“I really have to make a better pitch in that situation,” he said.
Making his second start as an Angel, the right-hander could not finish the fifth. He walked Utley, the pest, to lead it off and yielded a single to Justin Turner. After Chacin retired Seager on a deep fly, he walked Kendrick, and Scioscia replaced him with Jose Alvarez, who escaped the bases-loaded situation with only one run scoring.
“That kept us within striking distance,” Scioscia said.
Four Angel relievers combined on nearly spotless relief. They faced 15 Dodgers and retired 14 of them, the only blip a two-out walk from Fernando Salas.
The Dodgers’ starter, rookie right-hander Ross Stripling, also could not finish the fifth inning. He struggled throughout his abbreviated night.
With Kole Calhoun at second after a single and a wild pitch in the first, Mike Trout singled to left field, scoring one run. Trout added another run on a solo homer to left in the third inning. On both hits, Stripling tried to throw Trout a low-in-the-zone curveball on a 3-2 count. Both times, he hung the pitches, and both times, Trout had little trouble hitting them.
He did not see a strike in the fifth inning, his walk loading the bases with one out for Albert Pujols, the Angels trailing by two.
Pujols then took a belt-high 0-2 fastball for a called third strike and spoke angrily to umpire Mike Estabrook. Stripling’s next pitch drilled C.J. Cron in the arm, bringing in a run. That was it; Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts reacted by bringing in Chris Hatcher from the bullpen.
“When you don’t go deep in games, it’s tough on the ballclub,” Roberts said. “It’s tough on the pen. It’s tough to sustain winning baseball games.”
Hatcher, the scorned right-hander, had another bad night. His second pitch was a fastball down the middle, and Johnny Giavotella rapped it to left for a two-run, go-ahead single.
Leading off the next inning, Carlos Perez launched a solo homer, Gregorio Petit followed with a double, and Yunel Escobar laced a single.
Roberts finally pulled Hatcher in favor of Joe Blanton, the starter who failed so spectacularly as an Angel in 2013. His appearance was his first at Angel Stadium since that September. He retired all five batters he faced, matching his number of scoreless appearances here as an Angel, although a Trout groundout brought in one final run.
The Angels announced the crowd as 45,007, the largest they have hosted since they renovated the stadium in 1997.
pedro.moura@latimes.com
Twitter: @pedromoura
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