The Los Angeles Angels are trying to avoid a 100-loss season, and they took a step toward that against the Mariners.
The Los Angeles Angels haven’t had many come-from-behind wins this season, but they got a rare one on Thursday night against the Seattle Mariners to post a 6-4 win.
Things didn’t look good for the Angels early. They did score first in the second inning via an RBI single from Christian Moore, but Halos starter Grayson Rodriguez gave back three in the same inning. The key blow was a two-run homer from Julio Rodriguez, and Leo Rivas followed up with an RBI single to give the Mariners a 3-1 lead.
That score held into the fifth, when the Angels mounted a comeback off Seattle starter Brian Woo. An RBI groundout from Bryce Teodosio got one run home, and a single from Zach Neto drove home another to tie it up at 3-3.
But Rodriguez gave it up again in the Mariners half of the inning as J.P. Crawford scored on a wild pitch to make it 4-3, as Rodriguez had yet another poor start that drove his ERA up to 6.02.
But the Angels were surprisingly feisty offensively in this one, and Moore came right back for the Halos with a two-run RBI double in the sixth off Woo to put the Angels up 5-4.
The bullpen also served up a surprise by picking up Rodriguez, with Sammy Peralta pitching three scoreless innings. The Angels padded their lead in the eighth as Teodosio drove home another run with a single to make it 6-4 with the ninth inning looming.
The closer du jour was Ryan Watson, who’s been iffy in that role, but he came up strong against Seattle by striking out two and pitching a scoreless inning for his fourth save of the season.
The Angels seem to have relegated flamethrower Ben Joyce to a background role in the bullpen, which is a smart move given that getting a closer will be a major priority for the Kroenke regime when they take over next year.
This win is proof positive of the concept that the team with more to play for will usually get it done. That’s rarely been true for the Angels this season, but they’re desperately trying to avoid losing 100 games in a season for the first time in franchise history. They still need to win two of the next three games to get it done, but at least this win provided evidence that this team might actually have a spine of sorts.
