Oakland Athletics overpower Los Angeles Angels 4-3 in series tier - MLB Update
The Oakland Athletics romped to a 4-3 triumph in the fourth outing against the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium of Anaheim, on Thursday night, May 26, to tie the four-game series 2-all.
Andy LaRoche hit a pitch off the Angels’ starter Joel Pineiro to the third base for a RBI in the top of the second inning to take a 1-0 lead. He again came into action in the fourth inning, this time with an RBI double before Cliff Pennington single to the
centre-field to take the lead to a 4-0 incontrovertible position.
"It's good to finish the series with two out of three wins," LaRoche said. "Hopefully, it will give us some momentum going home and it will carry over. We are starting to see signs of life from our offence. As long as our pitchers continue to do the same
job they've been doing, hopefully our offence will start to liven up a little bit."
By the time, the Athletic’s starter, Brett Anderson held the Angels scoreless until the end of his eight innings spell. The 23-year-old hurler threw impressive pitches to end his spell without allowing any run on three hits while he allowed three walks and
struck out four batters to earn his third win of the season.
"Anderson pitched a good game and kept us down all afternoon," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "He just was ahead in the count all game. We had some opportunities to chip into their lead and we just couldn't get one or two runs across early."
Pineiro, on the other hand, has given four runs on eleven hits over his six innings spell. However, he did not conceded any walk and struck out three batters but remained winless with a 3.15 ERA.
The game was completely in Oakland’s favour when Pineiro handed the four-seam ball to top reliever Rich Thompson in the seventh inning. Rich performed brilliantly with the ball and struck-out two batters without allowing any hit over one inning.
However, the Angels’ batters remained helpless to touch any considerable hit off Anderson but as soon as the Athletic’s closer Grant Balfour replaced Anderson in the ninth inning, the Angels got near to reduce the lead with a homer.
Mark Trumbo entered the plate in the ninth inning for his fourth at-bat and this time he was in a passion to make something different from previous at-bats. With all the bases loaded, Trumbo launched a 391-feet long three-run homer to the left centre-field
to reduce the lead suddenly to 3-4.
However, Russell Branyan, the Angels’ last batter, could not get hold of a pitch and flied out to centre-field for a defeat.
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