Angels win third game in a row

Temperatures in Camden Yards dropped 28 degrees from game time Tuesday night to game time Wednesday, but on a gloomy, overcast, 54-degree afternoon, there was a warm and fuzzy feeling in the Angels’ clubhouse.

Torii Hunter and Kendry Morales hit consecutive home runs in the seventh inning, Shane Loux survived a harrowing start for his first big league win in six years, and the Angels held on for a 3-2 victory over the Baltimore Orioles, extending their winning streak to three.

“It’s fun when you’re winning; it’s good to put a streak together,” said Hunter, whose eighth homer left him one shy of the franchise record for April homers, set by Brian Downing in 1987. “A couple of days ago, it felt like some normalcy was returning to the clubhouse.”

The turning point, Hunter said, came last Thursday morning, when the team held a private memorial service in Angel Stadium for Nick Adenhart, the 22-year-old pitcher who was killed in an April 9 traffic accident.

“After the memorial, we kind of put it to rest, closed that chapter a little bit,” Hunter said. “It wasn’t a sad day -- guys were telling jokes about Nick and talking about how fun a guy he was.

“The music is playing in the clubhouse now. Guys are cracking jokes, coming in smiling and laughing. It’s pretty fun in the clubhouse, and when you have that, you come in relaxed, loose.”

Loux wasn’t feeling too at ease after the Orioles loaded the bases with no outs in the first inning Wednesday. But the right-hander minimized damage by getting Aubrey Huff to hit a sacrifice fly, Luke Scott to fly to right and Ty Wigginton to pop out.

Loux got out of another jam in the second, after Chad Moeller led off with a triple. Felix Pie grounded out to first, and Moeller was tagged out in a rundown after straying too far off third on Cesar Izturis’ grounder to the mound.

Loux then gave up one hit over the next four innings, retiring 11 straight during one stretch, his six-inning, one-run, five-hit effort giving him his first win since Sept. 24, 2003, when he pitched Detroit over Kansas City.

“I hope I don’t have to wait six years for my next win,” said Loux, who gave up 10 runs and 21 hits in his two previous starts. “It’s been a long time.”

One key for Loux?

Some advice after the second inning from “two guys named Mike” -- Manager Mike Scioscia and pitching coach Mike Butcher, he said.

“I went with a different game plan,” Loux said. “I wasn’t throwing my sinker for strikes, and when I did, they were hitting it. So I went more with my cut-fastball and slider, worked my sinker off those pitches, and it worked.”

Loux gave up a leadoff double to Moeller in the seventh and was pulled in favor of Justin Speier, who continued to pitch his way back into a more prominent bullpen role by striking out Pie and Lou Montanez and getting Brian Roberts to line out to first.

Jose Arredondo gave up a run in the eighth, but closer Brian Fuentes retired the side in order in the ninth for his fifth save.

Hunter ended a 1-1 tie by crushing Koji Uehara’s 1-and-1 pitch 20 rows into the left-field seats to lead off the seventh.

“That was an accident -- the wind must have been blowing out,” joked Hunter, who has had three nine-homer months in his career.

“I’m just riding the bike until the wheels fall off.”

Morales, who had a two-out, run-scoring triple in the fourth, followed by slamming an 0-and-2 pitch over the wall in center for his third homer, all of them in the last seven games.

--

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com