ANAHEIM — The Angels enjoyed a rare comfortable victory on Saturday night.
While they have a better record than expected this season, that’s mostly because of their success in tight games. Their run differential was still negative-61 because they had been on the wrong end of most of the blowout games.
They began to cut into that figure with a 9-1 victory against the Houston Astros, powered by a strong start from José Soriano and two Logan O’Hoppe homers.
It was the first time since April 10 that the Angels (37-39) had won a game by more than five runs. It had been a month since they’d won a game by more than four runs, and those back-to-back 10-5 victories in Sacramento were close until the Angels scored late insurance runs.
In this one, the Angels jumped to an early lead and never let the Astros get back into the game, completing one of their best overall performances of the season.
“I thought the at-bats were good, and when you get multiple runs on one swing, it just makes it so much easier for Sori to have that kind of breathing room and not have to pitch at red line every inning out there,” acting manager Ray Montgomery said. “It was great.”
O’Hoppe and Rengifo, who also hit a two-run homer, were the leaders of the 11-hit attack.
Soriano gave up one run in 6⅔ innings, his third straight outstanding performance. Soriano has a 0.87 ERA in starts against the Athletics, New York Yankees and Astros, with 28 strikeouts in 20⅔ innings.
“I have cleaned up my mechanics,” Soriano said through an interpreter. “And I think that’s a big part of the results I’ve been having.”
Normally a pitch-to-contact pitcher, Soriano struck out nine and got 19 swinging strikes against the Astros. The most swinging strikes of his career was 23, two starts ago.
“Throwing strikes with all of his pitches,” O’Hoppe said. “He’s got four legitimate weapons now, and he had them before, but it was like one was on in the past, and then the next start he didn’t have the other one. Now it’s a combination of all four. I’m really happy I have a glove on my hand, because I don’t know how guys hit it when he’s on like that.”
Soriano allowed a single and a walk in the first inning, but he escaped by getting Yainer Diaz on a groundout and striking out Cam Smith at the end of an eight-pitch at-bat.
The only run he allowed was in the fourth, on a walk and a ground ball single after the Angels were up by six runs.
While Soriano has been on a roll, the Angels’ hitters have been in a rut.
Over the previous eight games, the Angels had hit .201 and averaged 2.5 runs per game. They were hitting .121 with runners in scoring position, including a streak of 23 consecutive hitless at-bats heading into Saturday.
The game got off to an ominous start when Zach Neto led off with a double, and then the next three hitters went groundout, strikeout, strikeout, running the drought to 0-for-26 with runners in scoring position.
An inning later, Jo Adell reached on an infield hit, and then Rengifo belted a two-run homer.
Rengifo, who has been in a slump for the first two months of the season, is finally getting hot. He’s hitting .297 with an .874 OPS in his last 11 games.
An inning later, Nolan Schanuel was hit by a pitch and Mike Trout singled, setting the stage for Taylor Ward’s two-run double. Ward also had the Angels’ previous hit with a runner in scoring position on Tuesday.
O’Hoppe then blasted his first homer since May 22, putting the Angels up 6-0.
O’Hoppe hit another two-run homer in the seventh, giving him 16 for the season. O’Hoppe is now 4 for 11 in his last four games, with a double and two homers. Previously, he had gone three weeks without an extra-base hit.
“I’m getting away from adjusting myself into a hole,” O’Hoppe said. “Going up there with too many thoughts isn’t good for you at all. And I’ve done that the past couple weeks, just trying to search for the right thing. And after that first at-bat, I was like, ‘Screw it. I’m gonna wipe the slate clean and just hit.’ Simplify it as much as I could. And luckily, got a couple good pitches to hit.”
Neto also had two doubles, snapping out of a 0-for-13 in his previous three games.