Angels get away, but it isn’t quite clean

SEATTLE -- All those comments from the Seattle Mariners about how this was such a big series, an early-season showdown between teams expected to contend for the American League West title, must have rubbed off on the Angels.

The Angels avoided a three-game sweep with a convincing 10-5 victory Sunday in Safeco Field, pounding out 16 hits -- three each by Howie Kendrick, Jeff Mathis and Casey Kotchman -- and afterward, it all seemed pretty significant to the winning pitcher.

“We needed to win this game -- it was a big win for us,” said left-hander Joe Saunders, who overcame command problems to go 5 1/3 innings, giving up two runs and six hits, and improve to 2-0.

“If we had been swept, the plane ride to Texas would have been a lot worse. . . . The [Mariners’] hopes were really high from the last two nights. They were on a roll. It’s nice to have that stopper game, to get some momentum and stop the bleeding.”

Now, if they can only stop the straining, the bruising and the inflammation.

On an overcast, 51-degree day, in which center fielder Torii Hunter did not play because of a jammed left big toe, reliever Justin Speier struggled because of a sore right knee and closer Francisco Rodriguez took his first, somewhat tentative steps in his return from a sprained right ankle, the Angels lost their hottest hitter.

Kendrick, who had two doubles and a single to raise his average to .500 (18 for 36), clutched his left hamstring as he approached second base on his seventh-inning double to right-center field.

The second baseman was pulled from the game and diagnosed with a hamstring strain, an injury that is not expected to send him to the disabled list but could sideline him for several days.

Kendrick, who sat out 2 1/2 months of 2007 because of a pair of fluke finger injuries, had only returned Saturday after sitting out three games because of a jammed right thumb.

“I was hustling -- right before second, I tried to turn it on a bit -- when I felt my hamstring a little,” Kendrick said. “I tried to shut it down as soon as I felt it. I don’t think it popped. [Today], I should be able to tell how bad it is.”

Kendrick couldn’t blame the weather, “because other guys were playing in it,” he said. “It’s just part of the game. Before last year, I didn’t have any injury problems. It’s like I’ve been haunted the last two years.”

In between stints in the training room, Kendrick has been crushing the ball and finding gaps; he has five doubles and a triple.

“If he stays healthy, he’s going to win a batting title,” Hunter said. “That guy is unbelievable.”

The rest of the Angels weren’t bad Sunday, either. Vladimir Guerrero hit a two-out, two-run double in the third inning against Cha Seung Baek, who started when Erik Bedard was scratched because of an inflamed left hip.

Kendrick and Kotchman drove in runs in the fifth, Gary Matthews Jr. hit a two-run single to cap a three-run sixth, and Mathis hit a two-run home run to highlight a three-run seventh. The Angels went six for 16 with runners in scoring position after going four for 22 in those situations the first two games of the series.

“They had my back today,” Saunders said of the offense.

Saunders walked three and struck out one, and of his 91 pitches, only 47 were strikes.

“It seemed like they were in hitting counts all day,” Manager Mike Scioscia said.

Saunders escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the second when he got Jamie Burke to tap a check-swing grounder back to the mound to start a home-to-first double play. He also got Jose Vidro to ground into a double play in the fourth.

“It was a battle from the first pitch,” Saunders said. “I fell behind a lot of guys, but I made some pitches when I needed to.”

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mike.digiovanna@latimes.com