The Los Angeles Angels will try to win their second straight series against an American League division leader on Sunday afternoon when they face the West-leading Houston Astros in Anaheim, Calif.
The Angels took three of four games earlier in the week in New York against the East-leading Yankees. After dropping the series opener to the Astros 3-2 in 10 innings on Friday, Los Angeles posted a 9-1 victory Saturday as catcher Logan O’Hoppe hit two home runs and drove in four runs and right-hander Jose Soriano struck out 10 while allowing one run on three hits over 6 2/3 innings.
Luis Rengifo also homered for Los Angeles.
Veteran right-hander Kyle Hendricks (5-6, 4.79 ERA), coming off a game Tuesday in which he blanked the Yankees 4-0 on four hits over six innings with nine strikeouts, will start for the Angels and will oppose rookie right-hander Ryan Gusto (4-3, 4.31 ERA).
Hendricks is 1-1 with a 4.50 ERA in two career starts against the Astros. That includes a 7-3 loss at Houston on April 13, when he allowed five runs, including a three-run homer to Isaac Paredes, on four hits over four innings.
Gusto is 0-1 in one career start against the Angels, allowing three runs, including a solo home run by Nolan Schanuel, on four hits over four innings in a 4-1 home loss on April 12.
Hendricks has won three consecutive starts over Seattle, the Athletics and Yankees. His win at New York was his best start of the season, as he kept the Yankees off-balance with 42 changeups to go with 39 sinkers, 14 fastballs — none of which hit 90 mph — and three curveballs. Two of his nine strikeouts came against reigning American League MVP Aaron Judge.
“I went in with a good game plan, and just kind of saw what they were doing to us,” Hendricks said. “Getting ahead was a big key, establishing my fastball, especially inside to some of them, to get them to respect it a little bit. And then just being down, establishing both the fastball and the changeup, and then picking the spots where we needed to go up to change eyesight.”
The Angels hit three home runs Saturday night against the Astros, marking their first win by more than five runs since April 10. O’Hoppe ended a 19-game homer drought with the fourth multi-home run game of his career.
“It finally felt good to hit a ball flush again,” O’Hoppe said. “It had been a couple of weeks since that’s been going on. Felt good to get back in the groove. It was a team effort tonight, so that’s one we’ll definitely build on tomorrow.”
Houston finished with just three hits in the loss, but one of them was an RBI single by Christian Walker. The struggling first baseman, who is in the first year of a three-year, $60 million free-agent deal with the Astros, is batting just .214 with 10 home runs and 36 RBIs.
“Feeling better lately, I feel like myself lately,” Walker told MLB.com. “I think I started so slow that the average and stuff are slowly coming up, it’s going to be very much a chip-away-at-it-all-year type of thing. But I think a good challenge for me right now is not getting caught up in what the scoreboard says.”
Despite Saturday’s lopsided loss, Houston is 8-3 over its past 11 games and still holds a five-game lead in the AL West over the Seattle Mariners.
–Field Level Media
