Freese does his thing with walkoff homer to give Angels win over M’s

ANAHEIM, Calif. Felix Hernandez’s dreams of a 20-win season ended on Saturday night at Angels Stadium in the glove of Mike Trout.

The Mariners’ hopes of a victory were eradicated in the vapor trail of David Freese’s walkoff homer in the bottom of the ninth inning.

The first batter of the bottom of the ninth, Freese crushed an 0-1 cutter from Danny Farquhar over the wall in center field to give the Angels a 3-2 win.

For the Mariners, it was their 12th walkoff loss of the season and the 25th time they lost on an opponent’s final at-bat of the game.

Of course, Freese’s homer wouldn’t have won the game if not for the homer-robbing heroics of Trout in the fourth inning.

Jesus Montero hit a towering fly ball to dead center. Trout was tracking the ball the entire way, but it appeared he was going to run out of room with the fence in his way.

Instead, Trout just decided to use the wall as an aid. Trout jumped, dug his foot into the padded wall and boosted himself up with his free hand along the top of it. And then while keeping his balance, he reached out and caught the sure homer.

It was an audacious display of athleticism and skill. And yet, he made it look much easier than it should have been.

Instead of a 5-1 lead, Hernandez jogged to the mound in the bottom of the fourth with a 2-1 lead.

Hernandez was not sharp at all early. In the first two innings, he gave up five hits, walked two batters, threw two wild pitches and had a catcher’s interference call on Jesus Sucre. And yet he only allowed one run on a bases loaded sac fly to David Murphy in the first inning.

Seattle tied the game in the second inning. Franklin Gutierrez drew a leadoff walk, advanced to second on Jesus Montero’s double to right-center and scored on Jesus Sucre’s ground ball to second.

Hernandez helped himself in the second inning with an outstanding defensive play though not quite Trout-esque.

After Johnny Giavotella tripled to right-center with one out in the second inning, Erick Aybar appeared to have successfully executed a safety squeeze bunt to score him. But Hernandez fielded the bunt and, in one motion, flipped the ball from his glove to catcher Jesus Sucre, who tagged out Giavotella at the plate.

The Mariners took a 2-1 lead in the top of third on Ketel Marte’s first big-league homer.

The Angels tied the game in the sixth inning when C.J. Cron led off the inning with a solo homer to center field off Hernandez. It was Cron’s 15th of the season.

When the Mariners didn’t score in the top of the seventh, Hernandez’s victory hopes were done. He was lifted after pitching six innings and throwing 97 pitches.

(c)2015 The Seattle Times

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