Kent Bewley's News Story Collection

On Sun, Jun 21, the Los Angeles Angels faced the Athletics at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, Calif in the final game of a seven-game road trip and fourth game of an up-and-down series. The Halos lost the first two games of the series as they were shutout 5-0 on a Thursday night game and they choked an 11-4 lead against the A’s on Fri, Jun 19 as they lost 12-11 in 10 innings. The night before, the Angels won 7-0 with Walbert Ureña going five innings and getting his fifth win of the season. Now looking for a series split, the Halos had Reid Detmers start as he sought to continue his good stretch of pitching over the past month. The Athletics, who are near the top of the AL West, used Jack Perkins as their starting pitcher.

After a scoreless first inning offensively, Detmers came on the mound and he unfortunately had a tough start to the game as he gave up a leadoff single to the hot-hitting Zach Gelof and walked three straight batters, including a bases-loaded walk to Tyler Soderstrom for the first run of the day. Jonah Heim hit a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0 and Joey Meneses hit an RBI single to left field to increase the A’s lead to 3-0. With two outs, Detmers gave up one more run in the inning as Henry Bolte hit an RBI single to right center to make it 4-0. The entirety of the Athletics order came up in the first inning as Detmers gave up more than one run in a start for the first time since May 19 against the green and yellow team.

In the second inning, the Angels’ bats woke up as Nolan Schanuel and Denzer Guzman got singles and with one out, Donovan Walton came up and hit a 2-0 fastball off Perkins out to right field for a three-run shot. The Halos were down by one run with one great swing by Walton, who has been very efficient in getting extra base hits lately. Detmers pitched a clean bottom of the second and got out of a jam in the bottom of the third with a double play and a fantastic sliding catch in left field by Wade Meckler to end the inning. The Angels didn’t do much offensively speaking in the next couple of innings and the A’s scored in the bottom of the fourth on an RBI single by Nick Kurtz that scored Gelof with two outs.

In the top of the fifth, the Halos tried to score with Jose Siri and Meckler getting on base and a wild pitch thrown by Perkins with two outs advanced both runners a base. Jo Adell was up to bat and he had a chance to tie the game up and another wild pitch on a 2-2 count brought Siri home to score. Meckler went to third as it was only 5-4 Athletics now. Unfortunately, Adell struck out on the next pitch to end the scoring threat. Detmers pitched well in the fifth and sixth innings to close out his less than ideal outing strong. Another missed opportunity in the top of the sixth happened when Guzman got caught stealing by Heim and Christian Moore grounded out against Matt Krook.

In the top of the seventh, Luis Medina pitched for the A’s and he gave up a single to Logan O’Hoppe with one out. But he struck out Siri and got Neto to fly out to end the inning. In the bottom of the seventh, Brent Suter entered to pitch and he got unlucky as Gelof hit a ball straight to Guzman that was dropped out of the glove and it hit Guzman on the top of his hat. The ball fell onto the infield dirt and was ruled an error. Kurtz then came up and did what he’s been known for doing, which is hitting balls far as he unloaded on a slider from Suter for a two-run shot to the batters eye in center field. Suter got the next three batters out, but the Athletics were up 7-4 heading into the eighth inning.

Hogan Harris came in to pitch for the A’s and he faced a pinch-hitter in Vaughn Grissom, who came in to pinch-hit for Meckler. Grissom got hit on the foot on a 2-2 curveball and after Adell flew out, Schanuel hit a clutch single into right field that advanced Grissom to third base. Guzman came up and he clobbered a 1-1 changeup from Harris out into deep center field. The ball traveled over the wall for a clutch three-run shot by Guzman, who had hit home runs in the previous two games. Three straight games at Sutter Health Park equaled three home runs for Guzman as the Halos had tied this game at 7 apiece. Moore came up next and got a single, forcing Mark Kotsay to go to his bullpen and bring in Elvis Alvarado. Oswald Peraza came up to pinch hit for Walton and he struck out after Moore was caught stealing at second. The score was still tied heading into the bottom of the eighth. Chase Silseth came in to pitch and he got the first two batters for the Athletics out. But then Silseth walked Bolte and Jeff McNeil came up to pinch hit for Max Muncy the younger. After Bolte stole second base, Silseth engaged in a long at-bat against McNeil, who struck out on a check swing to end the inning.

With a couple of defensive changes, the A’s had Alvarado return to pitch in the top of the ninth. O’Hoppe came up first and flew out to Bolte in center. Siri then came up and hit a hard thrown fastball up the middle for a single. Zach Neto came up and he had been 0-4 on the day. On the second pitch of the at-bat, Neto hit a ball out to left field that was a no-doubter. A two-run shot that gave the Angels the lead at long last in this game. It was also Neto’s 17th homer of the season, tying him with Mike Trout for the team lead. With a 9-7 lead, the Angels weren’t able to add on but the bottom of the ninth had Sam Bachman take the mound to try and get a rare save for the Halos this season.

Bachman blew a save opportunity on Friday night when Heim hit a two-run shot to tie the game at 11. This time, Bachman had no issues as he got Gelof, Kurtz and Jacob Wilson out in order to end the game. The Angels had successfully split this series with the Athletics after losing three of four at the Big A in May against them. The winning pitcher was Silseth and Bachman had his second career save. The Halos had gone 3-4 on this road trip to Arizona and Sacramento where they had lost Trout to the injured list. At 32-47, the Angels will now prepare for a six-game homestand against the Baltimore Orioles and vagabond A’s. A good showing of power over three games as a combined 27 runs had been scored by the Halos with nine home runs. Three of them were from Guzman and two of them from Neto as the young bats continue to be ascendant in the Angels batting order.