Mike Napoli’s four hits lead Angels to 9-4 win over Mariners
Reporting from Seattle — The Angels will travel 50,509 air miles this season, the most in baseball and more than twice as many as the Chicago White Sox, who will travel a major league-low 22,832 miles. But when those flights stop in Kansas City and Seattle, who’s complaining?
Mike Napoli had four hits, including a tiebreaking, two-run home run in the seventh inning, to lead the Angels to a 9-4 victory and a three-game sweep of the Mariners at Safeco Field on Sunday.
Erick Aybar also had four hits — a double and three singles — and Robb Quinlan snapped an 0-for-2010 slump with two doubles and a single, part of a season-high 18-hit attack that pushed the Angels (31-28) to their eighth win in nine games.
Three of those wins came during a four-game series at Kauffman Stadium, where the Angels, now a half-game out of first place in the American League West, are 26-7 since 2003. The Angels are 23-12 at Safeco Field since 2007.
The offense has come to life since Kendry Morales broke a bone above his left ankle in a freak injury May 29; in eight games without the first baseman, the Angels are batting .310 (92 for 297) with 58 runs, 13 homers and 25 doubles.
Which raises the question: Are the Angels this good, or are they simply fattening up on noncontenders that are a combined 22 games under .500?
“It doesn’t matter who we’re playing. If we’re not playing good ball, we’ll get beat by anybody,” said bench coach Ron Roenicke, who filled in for Mike Scioscia while the manager attended his daughter’s high school graduation in Southern California. “If we’re playing this way, I feel we can beat anybody.”
The Angels have played well for Roenicke, going 7-0 and outscoring opponents, 44-18, in games in which he has filled in for Scioscia, who is to return Monday at Oakland.
What’s Roenicke’s secret?
“We’re playing good,” he said. “We’re playing nice baseball.”
The Angels fell behind, 3-1, in the first inning Sunday, when Jose Lopez (single), Milton Bradley (double) and Josh Wilson (triple) drove in runs against Angels starter Joel Pineiro, but Pineiro (4-6) shut out Seattle over the next four innings.
The Angels came back when Napoli singled and seldom-used Quinlan, hitless in 14 at-bats this season, hit a two-out, run-scoring double in the fourth and Hideki Matsui hit a solo homer in the fifth.
Quinlan singled and later scored on an error for a 4-3 lead in the sixth, but Ichiro Suzuki’s run-scoring double in the bottom of the sixth tied the score, 4-4.
Seattle reliever Shawn Kelley, who walked four during a six-run sixth inning Saturday, came on for the seventh. The right-hander found the plate this time … too much of it.
Matsui singled and Napoli hit his ninth home run of the season, an opposite-field shot to right, for a 6-4 lead.
“It was a two-strike slider, and I was trying to protect the plate,” Napoli said. “It was a little up. I tried to hit it hard.”
The Angels pulled away with three runs off closer David Aardsma in the ninth, an inning Napoli opened with a single. Juan Rivera hit a double, Aybar had a single and Howie Kendrick had a triple, each driving in a run.
The streaky Napoli, who hit .322 with eight homers and 10 doubles in May, seemed to be cooling, with three hits in 22 at-bats in June, but the catcher caught fire again Sunday.
“When a pitcher makes mistakes, he really hits them well,” Roenicke said. “I don’t know if it’s because he’s a catcher, but he picks up spin well.”
Quinlan hasn’t picked up much of anything this season. He spent April and May bouncing between Anaheim and triple-A Salt Lake and was hitting .000 before Sunday. He left with a .158 average.
“If you start looking at the numbers, you can get down on yourself quick,” Quinlan said. “I was just happy to have some good at-bats and to help the team win.”
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