The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Angels ride early outburst to seventh straight victory
ANAHEIM >> The Angels had lost hope for this season long before their mathematical chance at the postseason reached zero a few weeks ago, so they certainly could have simply slogged their way to the finish line.
Instead, they are sprinting there, with nothing but pride and personal accomplishments on the line.
The Angels beat the Texas Rangers, 8-3, on Sunday to win their seventh in a row, their longest winning streak since April 2018.
“I’m proud of the way they’ve gone about it,” manager Phil Nevin said. “It’s almost like nobody wants it to end right now. We just want to keep playing. The vibe we’ve got right now is good. It’s a fun room. It’s a fun group to be a part of.”
Cynics would point out that the Angels have won the last six against the Oakland A’s and Texas Rangers, who have even worse records than the Angels’ 73-86 mark. Nevin, not surprisingly, chooses not to focus on that.
“We put on a good show this week,” he said. “It doesn’t mater who you play. I’m proud of the way we went about our business.”
Mike Trout hit his 39th homer and Livan Soto, Taylor Ward and Trout each had three hits to lead the attack on Sunday, with a sixrun first inning putting the game away.
Trout singled. Shohei Ohtani punched a hit into left, extending his hitting streak to 17 games. Ward followed with an RBI single. Matt Thaiss drew a walk to load the bases, and then Logan O’hoppe drew a walk for his big league RBI.
Soto knocked in two with a double into the gap in left center. David Fletcher then drove in two more with a single.
Soto had his second straight three-hit game, improving his average to .413 and his OPS to 1.059 in the first 15 games he’s played after coming straight from Double-a to the big leagues.
Soto had a career .662 OPS in the minors, including a .741 OPS this year at Double-a, so it’s not likely anyone was expecting this kind of a start in the majors. Not even Soto.
“It does shock me what I’ve been doing here,” Soto said through an interpreter. “I know that in the minor leagues I wasn’t hitting as good as I am right now, but I’m thankful for the hard work I put in and the results are coming through.”
Ward’s three-hit game continued his torrid month. His OPS is 1.113 since Sept. 5.
Despite all of those runs, lefthander Tucker Davidson couldn’t get through the five innings required for a victory.
He did not allow a run in his first four innings, but then he issued a walk, gave up a two-run homer to Corey Seager, and issued another walk, ending his day. He was charged with three runs in 4 1/3 innings.
Davidson ended up walking five, which may have been discouraging after a change in his delivery helped him get through his previous start without a walk.
Davidson said he still feels good about the new delivery because his misses were more competitive than they had been before. The fifth-inning collapse gave him something to work on over the winter. He finished his season with a 6.75 ERA in 52 innings, including a 6.87 mark in 36 2/3 innings with the Angels.
“The first four innings I was kind of grooving, kind of on a roll,” Davidson said. “I think I just kind of lost it a little bit in the fifth and I think that’s something over the course of the offseason I’m going to figure out.”
“Next season,” of course, has been the Angels focus all too often lately. They have missed the playoffs eight years in a row and they’ve had a losing record seven years in a row.