On Fri, Aug 7, the Los Angeles Angels continued their road trip on the East Coast as they played the series opener of a three-game set against the Miami Marlins, who are still in range for a Wild Card spot in the National League in spite of suffering through a 12-game losing streak in recent times. This game occurred on the 35th birthday of one Michael Nelson Trout, who hadn’t played a game on this date since the 2020 season. With a lot of missed b-day games due to injuries and off-days, Trout had been waiting a long time to add onto his five career home runs on his birthday. The starting pitcher in this game for the Angels(holding the worst record in baseball entering the night) was George Klassen, who was called up from Triple-A Salt Lake after being awarded the Pacific Coast League’s Pitcher of the Month award. This would be the third start of the season at the big league level for Klassen, who is being given a chance to have an extended look of earning a spot in the Halos’ rotation on a longer-term basis. The starter for Miami was Tyler Phillips.
The game started with a groundout by Wade Meckler, then Trout came up to bat. After swinging at a splitter, Trout hit a four-seam fastball on the outside corner out to deep right center field. The ball traveled over the fence for a home run. It was Trout’s first homer since Jul 8 and his 19th of the season. With six home runs on his birthday, Trout joined an exclusive club of major leaguers to hit a home run on their birthday on six different instances. Alex Rodriguez and Mark Reynolds are the only other two players in that club along with Mike Trout. Klassen pitched a clean first inning and following a missed chance to score in the top of the second by the Halos, Klassen breezed through the bottom of the second.
In the third inning, Trout struck out in his second at-bat of the night and Nolan Schanuel worked a four-pitch walk with two outs against Phillips. Zach Neto had a long nine-pitch at-bat against Phillips that ended with him striking out looking. In the bottom of the third, Klassen got into some trouble as he gave up a leadoff double to Esteury Ruiz and a single by Kyle Stowers advanced Ruiz to third. Otto Lopez came up next and hit a 1-2 fastball on a hop to the left side of the infield, where Vaughn Grissom fielded the ball and threw it towards home plate. Tyler Heineman caught the ball and tagged out Ruiz for the fantastic force out. Klassen was lucky to have that out occur at the plate as he got designated hitter Griffin Conine and second baseman Xavier Edwards to fly out to Trout to end the inning. A big missed chance there by the Marlins.
In the bottom of the fourth, Klassen got into another jam after the Angels were unable to provide him with any more run support. He walked Owen Caissie, then after getting a strikeout, Klassen gave up a bunt single to Jakob Marsee. A groundout by Joe Mack advanced both runners into scoring position with two outs. Ruiz came up and Klassen walked him on four pitches to load up the bases. With the bases loaded, Stowers came up and after fouling off a pitch took four balls out of the zone to draw a bases loaded walk. The RBI walk tied the game up at one and Klassen had a mound visit occur with Mike Maddux. The bullpen was starting to get loose for the Halos as Miami sought to break this game open. However, Klassen got Lopez to ground out to Oswald Peraza to end the inning. In spite of some command issues, Klassen did good to minimize any damage from the Marlins’ bats.
In the fifth inning, Heineman hit a leadoff single and Phillips was taken out and relieved by Michael Petersen. Meckler hit into a force out and Trout drew a walk in his third at-bat by winning an ABS challenge on a full count pitch that was originally called strike three but got overturned. Unfortunately, the two Miami-area natives in the Halos’ lineup in Schanuel and Neto were unable to break the tie. In the bottom of the fifth, Tayler Saucedo came in to pitch for Klassen and threw a 1-2-3 inning. The top of the sixth ended on a double play that Peraza hit into and in the bottom of the sixth, the Marlins were granted a scoring chance following a failed diving catch attempt by Trout on a ball hit to shallow center field by Marsee, who nearly got tagged out on a backpick throw but was able to slide back safely into first base. After getting Mack to ground out, Saucedo was taken out by Kurt Suzuki and the recently-recalled Shaun Anderson came in to pitch. Ruiz was up as Marsee was at second base and Anderson walked Ruiz on four pitches. Stowers had another RBI chance with runners on base and he didn’t miss out on it as he blooped a ball that landed in shallow center field. Marsee came around to score and Ruiz went to third as Stowers had reached for the fourth time in this game in having both RBIs for Miami. Anderson would get Lopez to ground out to end the inning, but the Marlins were now ahead 2-1 going into the latter stages of this game.
In the top of the seventh, Josh Lowe led off the inning by drawing a walk against reliever Josh Ekness. Heineman would put down a bunt that advanced Lowe to second base. Meckler then came up and grounded out to Lopez, but Lowe went to third. With two outs, Trout came up and he was seeking to get a clutch hit with the game-tying run 90 feet away. On a 1-2 count, Trout hit a curveball up the middle to Ekness, who should have been able to field the ball and throw Trout out at first base. But the ball slipped through the legs of Ekness and trickled up the middle, where Edwards tried to get the ball and throw out Trout. But Trout used his swift speed to beat out the throw, with Lowe scoring and the game was now tied. The fielding error by Ekness was very costly for the Marlins as Schanuel came up and looked to do some damage. He did just that as he launched a sweeper out to deep right center field. The ball went over the fence as it was a two-run shot by Schanuel, who definitely got some hometown cheers as a Fort Lauderdale native. The Angels were now up 4-2 with three amazing two-out runs in the seventh inning.
In the bottom of the seventh, Blake Weiman entered into the game to pitch in his first career big league appearance. As a 30-year old minor league veteran, Weiman was getting this chance due to the need for relief pitchers at the big league level for the Halos due to trades and injuries. Weiman gave up a leadoff single to pinch-hitter Augustin Ramirez but got Edwards to line out to Lowe for his first big league out. After getting another pinch-hitter to pop out, Weiman gave up a two-out single to Leo Jiménez. With runners on first and second, Weiman faced another pinch-hitter in Javier Sanoja, who hit a slider up the middle to Weiman, who fielded the ball cleanly and threw it to Schanuel at first base to escape the jam. An incredible first major league appearance there by Weiman, who is the eighth different Angels player to make his big league debut in the 2026 season.
In the eighth inning, the Halos did nothing offensively against Calvin Faucher. In the bottom of the eighth, Ben Joyce entered to pitch for his second big league appearance this season. In his return to the big league mound on Wed, Aug 5 in Baltimore, Joyce got a strikeout, pop out and a caught stealing out to have a clean outing. Joyce struck out Mack to start this outing, but then got lucky when Ruiz was called out on a play where it appeared that Schanuel’s foot was slightly off the first base bag. Miami’s manager Clayton McCullough challenged the call of out and after a long review, the ruling on the field was surprisingly upheld. Joyce then faced Stowers, who got his fourth single of the game, but the fireball pitcher threw a 101.6 mph fastball to Lopez, who hit into a force out to end the inning.
In the ninth inning, the Angels were retired 1-2-3 by John King and had José Fermin enter to pitch in the bottom of the ninth to try and close out this game. A multi-run lead was good in this case due to Fermin having issues with giving up runs in late-game situations. Right away, Fermin gave up a leadoff single to Ramirez, but he got Edwards to ground out. Heriberto Hernández came up and flew out to Jose Siri in left field. Down to their last out, the Marlins had Jiménez come up and he hit a slider from Fermin out to center field. Ramirez scored as Miami was down by one run now. With the game-tying run at first base, the game-winning run in Sanoja came up for the Marlins. Fermin evened the count at 2-2 but Sanoja hit a ball to the left that went off the glove of Denzer Guzman, who entered as a defensive substitution for Grissom. The ball slowed its speed as it rolled into shallow left field. Seeing this as a golden chance to score, Jiménez raced on the basepaths and took a big turn around third base. But Siri picked up the ball and threw it in fast on a hop to Heineman, who got the ball in his mitt and tagged a sliding Jiménez out at home plate. It was game over. A thrilling way for the Halos to win a series opener for only the second time in this post All-Star Break schedule. A crew chief review took place to determine if the call at home plate would be upheld or overturned and the call was upheld. An incredible win for the Angels on Mike Trout’s 35th birthday.
The winning pitcher of the game was Anderson, who gave up a run in the bottom of the sixth only to see three runs scored by his teammates in the seventh. Along with Trout’s two runs scored(one of them a homer), Schanuel’s two-run shot was a big difference maker in this one. That was only the seventh big fly of the season for the first baseman, who is leading the Halos in batting average. The defense was clutch as well, with Siri’s amazing throw to Heineman being the biggest play of them all. With 45 wins on the season, the Angels are trying to avoid their first 100-loss record in franchise history. A lot of close wins and close losses have been the theme for this team in 2026, but this win was definitely a sweet treat. This was also the first time that the Halos have won consecutive games on the road since the first two games of the season against the Houston Astros. A good accomplishment there. Now the Angels will try to get their third road series win of the season against a Marlins team that missed out on a big chance to improve their postseason odds.
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