Early pitchers’ duel ends in 11th inning

ANAHEIM — Two pitchers who weren’t in their team’s rotations to open the season put on a show shutting down hitters Tuesday night at Angel Stadium, but the game was decided long after both left.

Kole Calhoun delivered an RBI single to center with two outs in the 11th to give the Angels a 2-1 win over Oakland.

Calhoun’s hit left the A’s looking for answers. Ryan Madson, who gave up Calhoun’s single, didn’t feel as if he threw the 0-1 fastball with enough conviction, saying, “I wasn’t comfortable with that pitch. I should have stepped off and re-thought it.”

Catcher Josh Phegley said, “Obviously, you second-guess yourself when a game-winning hit is off a pitch you just called. ... I’ll trust that guy’s fastball every game of the year; just not the result we were looking for.”

Neither Oakland’s Jesse Hahn nor Angels starter J.C. Ramirez allowed a hit through three innings, and Hahn gave up just one hit in his eight innings of scoreless work. “He really had it working tonight,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said.

Phegley gave Oakland the lead with a pinch-hit homer, the first of his career, on the first pitch of the 10th inning, from left-hander Jose Alvarez. Phegley was the first man all night to get past first base, but then Mike Trout did the same in the bottom of the inning off Santiago Casilla, slicing a home run down the right-field line just inside the foul pole.

“I don’t know anyone who hits a home run like that right down the line on a ball that looks like it’s by him, slicing,” Melvin said of Trout’s opposite-field drive. “Maybe he and Khris Davis.”

Casilla had nailed down each of his first three save opportunities with Oakland. Casilla did do some nice work getting out of the inning with the potential winning run at second and no outs, striking out Jefry Marte and getting flyouts from Andrelton Simmons and Cameron Maybin.

The A’s then stranded their own runner at second in the top of the 11th after a leadoff single by Adam Rosales and a sacrifice bunt by Jaff Decker.

Oakland’s projected top two starters, Sonny Gray and Kendall Graveman, are on the DL, and the Angels have seven pitchers out — thus, Hahn and Ramirez’s matchup. Hahn opened the season with Triple-A Nashville, then pitched in relief before landing the fifth spot in the rotation, and Ramirez had made 111 big-league relief appearances before his first start April 14.

Through three innings, the only baserunner for either team was Trout, who drew a two-out walk from Hahn in the first. Decker, leading off the fourth, collected the first hit of the night, but he was thrown out stealing. He pulled in standing up after feeling discomfort in his left foot, which he’d rolled on a diving catch during the last homestand. After getting the foot taped, he remained in the game.

In the fifth, Simmons poked a single to right for the Angels’ first hit, but he, too, was erased quickly when Hahn picked him off and he was caught in a rundown.