ANAHEIM — The Angels had their best offensive performance in a month, doing so in a manner you wouldn’t expect.
For most of the season, the Angels relied on hitting balls over the fence to score, and for the past month they have barely been able to do that.
But they strung together 15 hits, without a home run, in a 7-0 victory over the Texas Rangers on Thursday night.
It was the first time the Angels had more than 10 hits in a game since July 8, which was a 13-1 victory against the Rangers in Texas. For most of the time since then, it’s been a struggle to even get to four runs in a game.
The Angels (48-74) have won three games in a row for the first time since July 19-21. They also pulled ahead of the Athletics, getting out of last place in the American League West for the first time since April 28. (They had been tied for fourth a few times since.)
“It’s a long season,” said outfielder Josh Lowe, who had two hits and two RBIs. “It ebbs and flows and you just try to keep your head above water. Obviously we’re not in the spot that we we want to be, but it’s our job every day as baseball players, professionals, to go out there and put together good at-bats. We’ve come out on the winning end the last couple games here and seen the offense start to pick up.”
The offensive explosion was more than enough for starting pitcher Walbert Ureña, who cut his ERA to 2.67 with his sixth scoreless performance in 20 starts.
Mike Trout led the way with three hits, the first time since 2018 that he had back-to-back games with three hits.
The Angels did it all without shortstop Zach Neto, who Manager Kurt Suzuki gave the night off for a mental break.
The Angels took advantage of a compromised Jacob deGrom. The two-time Cy Young Award winner came into the game dealing with a hip issue, and the Rangers announced after his two-inning outing that he had a triceps issue.
Before he left, though, the Angels collected five hits and two runs again him in the second inning. It was the first time that deGrom had allowed five hits in an inning since 2017.
Denzer Guzman, Lowe, Adam Frazier, Wade Meckler and Trout all had hits against deGrom. The Angels could have done even more damage, but Lowe was thrown out at the plate trying to score on Frazier’s single into left field.
“A lot of credit to the guys,” Suzuki said. “A lot of credit to the hitting coaches, preparing them and for them to carry out the plan at the plate, really just having great at-bats from top to bottom.”
The Angels then put the game away with four runs in fifth, on six more hits. It was the first time since the July blowout against the Rangers that they had a six-run lead. They hadn’t even had a five-run lead since July 21.
The beneficiary of the outburst was Ureña, who had to work hard in the early innings to give the Angels six innings.
The Angels made errors in each of the first two innings, pushing up his pitch count. He was at 37 pitches after two, which could have been a problem considering how much the bullpen has been used lately.
In the fourth, with the Angels still leading just 2-0, Ureña gave up two singles with two outs. He had apparently walked Austin Wynns to load the bases with his 73rd pitch of the night. Catcher Moisés Ballesteros challenged, and the review showed the ball nicked the zone, for an inning-ending strikeout.
Ureña got through the last two innings, facing the minimum, and finishing his night at 100 pitches. He struck out five and walked two.
It was a good bounce-back for Ureña, who gave up four runs in a loss to the Miami Marlins in his last start.
“He’s getting better and better,” Suzuki said. “I know the last start he had a little tough one. For him to regroup, get his work in this week and and be ready for tonight and do what he did tonight was pretty cool.”