Angels show some life, end long skid
Valbuena’s hit helps them end skid, but wild-card chances remain very slim.
Valbuena’s big hit helps them top Astros, but they fail to gain ground in wild-card race.
HOUSTON — Five times this season, Luis Valbuena had faced Chris Devenski, and five times Devenski had struck him out, wielding his wicked changeup to great success. So, when Valbuena stepped up to face him with the bases loaded in a tied seventh inning Sunday at Minute Maid Park, he resolved to locate redemption, as long as it took. He wanted to clobber a changeup.
“I waited for my pitch,” Valbuena said.
It took 11 pitches, five fouls. Eventually it came, a changeup suitably low in the zone. Valbuena banished the baseball to the rightfield wall, ferociously flipped his bat, and made his way to second base. His two-run double represented the difference in the Angels’ 7-5 win over the Houston Astros, snapping their six-game losing streak and allowing them to dream another day.
“We really needed that,” said second baseman Brandon Phillips. “I mean, we needed wins the day before that.”
Indeed, it is likely too late. Stationed 41⁄2 games behind Minnesota, the Angels could win all seven games remaining in their regular season and still fall short of the wild card. But they will try to apply pressure on the Twins from Chicago, where they were scheduled to check into their hotel around 4 a.m. Monday and play later in the day.
Such is the inconvenience foisted upon teams scheduled on Sunday Night Baseball, which had not featured the Angels in more than two years.
Tyler Skaggs, Sunday’s starter, suggested that national television exposure might have sparked the Angels. He produced an imperfect five-inning outing, his mishaps beginning with a first-inning curveball that spun into Jose Altuve’s cleat.
When Carlos Correa next singled into right field, shortstop Andrelton Simmons deked like he wouldn’t cut off the throw to third, then did, and fired to first to catch Correa off base. Running wild across the infield, Simmons soon changed course and helped run down Altuve between third and home.
Simmons nearly ran into an umpire on his way off the field, so energized he was. But it worked, and the Angels kept up their effort throughout the night, disappointing the 36,756 assembled fans for Houston’s last regular-season home game.
The Angels scored once in the third and again in the fourth, on a Phillips solo shot.
In between, Skaggs unraveled. He obtained two quick outs to begin the third, then hit another Astro, allowed a homer to Alex Bregman, walked two, and surrendered a two-run double to Evan Gattis.
“The wheels fell off,” Skaggs said.
Backup began to warm behind him, but Skaggs forged on and finished two more innings unscathed. The Angels drew two basesloaded walks in the fifth to tie the score, and Valbuena came through when they loaded the bases again in the seventh.
Their two-run lead was their largest in eight days. At first, it did not last a pitch into the bottom of the seventh, as George Springer crushed Cam Bedrosian’s first offering for a solo shot.
In the eighth, Justin Upton stretched the lead back with his own shot, his seventh home run in 21 games as an Angel. The rest of the game soared by, and the music blared in the visiting clubhouse afterward
“We’ve gotta win out,” Skaggs said. “We know that. We’ve gotta stay loose, we’ve gotta play free. We definitely were a lot more loose today.”
He said he was unsure why they were. Phillips said he did not sense a more relaxed approach from his new teammates.
“I feel like things just went our way,” he said.
Either way, they have more time to try.
“For us to win the way we did today, anything can happen,” Phillips said. “It’s not over. We need to go out there and try to beat the brakes off people, so they know we’re serious.”
Short hops
After Oakland catcher Bruce Maxwell became the first major leaguer to protest against inequality in the United States by kneeling during the national anthem, Angels manager Mike Scioscia spoke to his team before Sunday’s game, assuring players they had the organization’s support if they chose to protest during the national anthem. “It’s a personal time,” the manager said. “As an organization, we feel that guys are free to use that personal time for whatever personal expression they might have.” On Sunday, no players from either team visibly demonstrated. … Left-hander Andrew Heaney threw a standard bullpen session before the game. His plan is to start the Thursday finale of this seven-game trip. He has been out since Sept. 9 because of shoulder soreness.