Garland takes command

OAKLAND -- The earlier 6 p.m. start, which produced shadows between home plate and the mound for several innings, probably helped. So did the fact that he had far better command of his pitches than he did in his previous start.

Outside of that, Jon Garland, who had all of 22 strikeouts in his first 12 starts and no more than five in one game, had no explanation for why he struck out eight in the Angels’ 5-3 victory over the Oakland Athletics in McAfee Coliseum on Saturday night.

“I have no idea where that came from, no answer for it,” said Garland, who gave up two runs and five hits in seven innings to lead the Angels to their seventh straight win. “Maybe I was throwing a disappearing ball.”

Garland, who improved to 6-3 and helped the Angels increase their American League West lead over Oakland to 5 1/2 games, seemed to be joking with his last comment.

Or was he?

“It was like he was throwing invisi-balls,” Oakland left fielder Jack Cust said. “It’s frustrating to feel like you’re on a pitch and then miss it. A lot of guys in the dugout were saying the same thing. They were not really picking the ball up.”

The A’s finally caught on to Garland in the eighth, when Daric Barton singled and Travis Buck hit a two-run homer to trim the Angels’ lead to 5-2. Carlos Gonzalez then doubled to knock Garland out of the game.

Rookie reliever Jose Arredondo prevented further damage in the eighth, replacing Garland and retiring three batters in a row to extend his scoreless string to 11 2/3 innings.

Francisco Rodriguez struggled in the ninth, giving up a leadoff homer by Cust, a double to Eric Chavez and a walk, but he struck out Barton on a full-count slider for the second out and Gonzalez with a full-count slider to end the game for his major league-leading 26th save and franchise-record 23rd in a row.

The Angels, who built their lead on Maicer Izturis’ leadoff home run, a pair of sacrifice flies, a wild pitch and a fielder’s-choice grounder, improved to 39-24, tying the Chicago Cubs for the best record in baseball.

“We’ve had a lot of guys out of the lineup,” Manager Mike Scioscia said, “but if there’s one area we’ve been very consistent in, it’s been our pitching.”

Including Garland, despite his recent blip.

The right-hander is 3-0 with a 2.28 earned-run average in his last seven starts, even after needing 115 pitches, including 44 in the first inning, to complete five innings against Toronto last Sunday.

Asked if there was any particular pitch Garland was having trouble commanding, Scioscia said, “You can pick any pitch, and he was having problems with it. He was in every area code of that strike zone.”

Saturday night, he was dialed in. Garland threw only 93 pitches, and 61 of those were strikes. He threw first-pitch strikes to 15 of 26 batters. His 44th pitch Saturday was thrown in the fourth inning.

“There’s a big difference when you’re throwing strikes and getting ahead of guys,” Garland said. “I slowed the game down a bit. Against Toronto, I was a little jumpy trying to attack the zone. Today, I still attacked the zone, but a little calmer.”

Throwing strikes with his off-speed pitches, a slider and a changeup, helped make his sinking fastball, which tops out at about 91 mph, look even quicker.

“When I did throw my fastball,” Garland said, “it jumped on them a little quicker than I thought they were expecting.”

--

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com