Angels finish sweep of Royals

Starter has his best outing of the season as Angels complete a 5-2 homestand.

Canning has a strong outing and Rendon gets offense going in 6-1 win over Kansas City.

ANGELS 6 KANSAS CITY 1

The Angels’ best homestand of the season started with two dramatic, nerveracking wins, the offense mounting a massive lategame rally in one and closer Raisel Igleisas producing a six-out save in the other.

It finished Wednesday night with a third straight decisive victory, a 6-1 defeat of the Kansas City Royals in which the Angels (30-32) earned their first threegame series sweep of the season and finished the sevengame homestand with five wins.

On the mound, Griffin Canning pitched a seasonlong 62⁄3 innings and gave up only one run to the Royals (29-31). At the plate, seven starters recorded hits in a balanced display. And in the dugout, manager Joe Maddon watched on in delight, his team winning its 11th game of their last 16 to inch a bit closer back to .500.

Here are three observations from the win.

Canning continues rotation’s roll

So decisive was this series, in which the Angels outscored the Royals 22-5, that Iglesias pitched the ninth inning Wednesday because of a lack of work in recent days — the bullpen hardly needed at all after the Angels’ starter pitched into the sixth inning for a third straight night.

This time, it was Canning who excelled, pitching not only his longest outing of the campaign but perhaps his best too. In 89 pitches, he gave up only five hits and two walks while striking out six.

After escaping a basesloaded jam in the first, he allowed only two more men to reach scoring position the rest of the night. He had retired 10 in a row before giving up a single with two outs in the seventh, when Maddon summoned Mike Mayers.

Thanks in large part to the success of his secondary pitches, Canning’s ERA dropped to 5.22, its lowest in almost a month.

Stassi stays hot

Maddon doesn’t usually like starting the same catcher in three straight games.

This week, Max Stassi changed his mind.

After returning from a concussion last week and going on a five-game tear, Stassi started again on Wednesday and picked up a single and double.

He became the first Angels catcher to have an extra-base hit in four straight games with a plate appearance since 2014, and improved to 11 for 23 with three doubles and three home runs in June.

“He’s kind of frisky right now,” Maddon said. “You can see the bat’s playing good. The bat’s playing really well.”

Faith in Rendon

Anthony Rendon has been better in June than he was in May, collecting his 10th hit in eight games since the turn of the month with a two-run double to open the scoring Wednesday.

But, the Angels are still waiting on the former AllStar to fully hit his stride again.

“He just has not recaptured the form yet,” Maddon said of Rendon, who finished Wednesday batting just .232 with a .648 on-base-plusslugging percentage this season, a campaign that has also included two trips to the injured list.

“To stay on a nice roll, getting him going is going to be very large. I think he’s going to do that.”