Cobb dazzles with vintage outing
Starter pitches seven scoreless innings, striking out eight and walking two, and lowers his ERA to 3.78.
He pitches seven scoreless innings, striking out eight and walking two.
OAKLAND — Angels reliever Tony Watson spent three innings getting loose on Saturday, throwing pitch after pitch in the right-field bullpen at RingCentral Coliseum.
He had to wait his turn. Starter Alex Cobb was pitching too well to come out of the game.
In the Angels’ 4-0 win over the Oakland Athletics, Cobb dazzled across seven scoreless innings. He struck out eight batters and walked only two.
He gave up just three singles and no extra-base hits. His infield turned three double plays. His outfield didn’t have to make a single catch while he was on the mound.
“Everything he did,” Angels manager Joe Maddon said, “it was first-rate.”
It was a vintage performance from the 33-year-old right-hander, using soft contact and ground balls to silence the A’s (31-23), who entered the day top-10 in the majors in slugging percentage.
Cobb didn’t throw a ton of strikes (only 58 out of his 101 pitches) or get a bunch of whiffs (only 12 on 42 swings). But he mixed his sinker, splitter and curveball to near-perfection, putting batters away when he was ahead in the count and inducing weakly hit balls on the ground when he wasn’t.
“When I have days like this when I’m able to manipulate the ball like I want to, get it to do what I want to, then I’m able to play the game and do the thinking game with the hitter and set them up in different ways,” Cobb said. “That’s when it becomes fun.”
By the time Cobb finally did exit, making way for Watson to pitch the eighth and closer Raisel Iglesias to pitch the ninth — combining for the team’s first shutout of the season — the Angels (23-29) had already built their four-run lead.
All four of the runs were unearned, scored in a fifth inning during which A’s starter Frankie Montas
threw two wild pitches and catcher Aramis Garcia committed a crucial error at the plate.
With runners at the corners and one out in the inning, David Fletcher dropped a bunt that A’s first baseman Matt Olson quickly fielded.
Olson threw to the plate in plenty of time for Garcia to make the tag on baserunner Jose Rojas. But Garcia missed the catch, allowing Rojas to score and a big inning to ensue.
Two at-bats later, Shohei Ohtani sliced a two-run single into left, one of two singles on the day. Ohtani then stole second and scored on an RBI single by Anthony Rendon — who also had two hits, including a double after previously slumping through the past two weeks after returning from a knee injury.
“He’s going to keep getting better and better,” Maddon said. “In the limited time I’ve had a chance to work with him last year and this year, I’ve seen good, then coming off an injury not so good, then he eventually gets his rhythm back.”
The four runs were plenty for Cobb, who benefited from three double plays — including an unusual moment in the fourth inning when the A’s Tony Kemp tagged up from first on a caught foul ball but was tagged out after making an overly aggressive turn around second.
Watson began warming up in the sixth, with a string of left-handers due up against Cobb. It didn’t matter.
Cobb, who was making only his second start since returning from a blister, retired his final six with ease to become the first Angels starter to throw seven scoreless innings this year and lower his ERA to 3.78.
“He was throwing his best fastballs the last two innings,” Maddon said, adding: “You see his demeanor, his calmness when things got hairy … Great game to build off of. His finger was good. Very nice performance.”
‘You see his demeanor, his calmness when things got hairy … Great game to build off of.’ — Joe Maddon, Angels manager, on starter Alex Cobb