The Los Angeles Angels bounced back from one of their ugliest losses of the season with one of their best games of the year.
Now the Angels will hope for a similar rebound from staff ace Jose Soriano in the rubber game of a three-game series against the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday afternoon in Anaheim, Calif.
Los Angeles (68-77) committed four errors and had other gaffes in a 12-3 defeat to Minnesota (64-81) on Monday. However, the Angels posted season highs in runs and hits (17) while recording a 12-2 victory on Tuesday.
Soriano (10-10, 4.07 ERA) comes in off his worst outing of the season, a 10-4 loss to the Athletics on Friday that saw him allow eight runs on five hits and five walks in just 2 1/3 innings. Fourteen of his first 16 pitches were balls, and he left after throwing just 39 strikes in 80 pitches.
It was a head-scratching performance considering the right-hander had tossed a combined 12 2/3 shutout innings in his two previous starts at Houston and at Texas, allowing just five hits and four walks while striking out 14.
“This is baseball,” Soriano said after the game versus the A’s. “These things happen. You can have your best outing, and then things happen like today. The only thing I have to do is keep working and stay positive.”
It’s been an up-and-down season for Soriano. He has allowed seven runs or more in a game four times but still has a solid ERA. Even more perplexing is the fact he has been dominant on the road (8-2 with a 2.47 ERA in 14 starts) but has struggled badly at home (2-8 with a 5.90 ERA in 15 starts).
Soriano is 0-2 with an 8.22 ERA in three career appearances (two starts) against Minnesota. He took a 5-0 loss at Minneapolis on April 27, when he allowed four runs (three earned) on five hits in five-plus innings.
The Twins will counter with right-hander Taj Bradley (6-7, 4.92), whose lone career appearance against the Angels came back in 2023. He tossed five innings of one-run ball in a no-decision.
Bradley, acquired in a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays on July 31 for reliever Griffin Jax, is 0-1 with a 7.20 ERA in three starts with Minnesota.
The Angels, outscored 42-15 in their previous four games, got seven shutout innings from Kyle Hendricks and three-run homers from Chris Taylor and Yoan Moncada while cruising to the win on Tuesday. The result snapped Los Angeles’ six-game losing streak to the Twins.
“It was great to see the bats get going,” said Taylor, who finished with four RBIs. “Probably haven’t been swinging as well as we want to, so to come out and put up a big number is big for us.”
Taylor was filling in for right fielder Jo Adell, the team’s home run leader with 35. Adell missed his second straight game while battling vertigo.
All 12 runs scored by Los Angeles came with two outs, the second time in team history that has happened. The other time was on April 14, 1962, on the road against the Twins.
“After (Monday), there was a correction there,” Angels interim manager Ray Montgomery said. “There was a poorly played game, and we responded with a much better played game.”
Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli hopes his team can respond in a similar fashion on Wednesday.
“I don’t know if it does a whole lot of good to dissect that (Tuesday) game,” Baldelli said. “It was not one of our good ballgames that we have played recently. I’d like to turn the corner from that one.”
–Field Level Media
