José Soriano leads Angels to series victory over Rangers
Soriano pitched 7-2/3 innings in his longest outing of the season, allowing only one run. The Angels took the lead with four runs in the seventh inning.
ARLINGTON, Texas — José Soriano stretched his starter legs.
The Angels right-hander had not pitched more than six innings in any of his first seven big league starts, but he got through 7-2/3 innings in the Angels’ 4-1 victory over the Texas Rangers on Sunday.
Soriano was so efficient that he still only needed 93 pitches. He struck out five and walked two, one intentionally. The only run was on a Corey Seager homer.
The Angels (18-29) won a series for only the third time all season, and the first time against a team that had a winning record.
Angels starters Tyler Anderson, Patrick Sandoval and Soriano gave up three runs in 20-2/3 innings over the weekend.
Soriano cut his ERA to 3.30 with the performance, continuing to show the Angels’ decision to move him from the bullpen to the rotation was a good one.
Soriano retired the first 10 hitters of the game before Seager hit a first-pitch knuckle curve over the right field fence in the fourth.
The next time Seager was due, it was after Marcus Semien’s one-out double in the sixth, so the Angels put him on intentionally. Soriano responded by getting Nathaniel Lowe on a flyout and striking out Josh Smith on three pitches.
Manager Ron Washington tried to get Soriano through eight innings, coming to the mound to deliver a pep talk with two outs in the seventh, but he walked Seager and then gave up a hit.
Luis Garcia got the final out of the eighth and then worked the ninth, preserving the victory. Closer Carlos Estévez had pitched two innings the night before.
The pitching staff had a bit of a cushion because the offense, which had been dormant for most of the previous game and a half, finally came to life in the seventh.
Willie Calhoun led off with a double and then Jo Adell drew a walk. An out later, Zach Neto worked an eight-pitch walk to load the bases.
Mickey Moniak, who brought a .183 average to the plate, dropped a blooper just inside the left-field line, tying the game.
That snapped a streak of 24 straight hitless at-bats with a runner in scoring position, going back to Friday night. They were 0 for 18 in Saturday’s 13-inning loss.
Pinch hitter Kevin Pillar followed with a two-run single. Moniak was then thrown out trying to go to third, which cost the Angels a run after Luis Rengifo’s subsequent triple. It drove in just one run instead of two, putting the Angels up 4-1.
More to come on this story.