ANAHEIM — The Angels can start over now.
After being the Miami Marlins, 7-4, on Friday night to run their winning streak to eight games, the Angels are back to .500 for the first time in nearly a month.
They got there with their longest winning streak since they won 10 in a row in 2014, which was the last season they made the playoffs.
The Angels (25-25) were last at the break-even mark at 12-12.
“We got back to zero,” Manager Ron Washington said. “So now we can start forward and go from there, but we’re not a .500 team, and (the players) don’t think they’re a .500 team. We’re at .500, which is a good thing, because we were behind and we caught up. Now we just gotta keep moving forward.”
The Angels were behind mostly because of an anemic offense in late April and early May. Their bats began to come around a couple of weeks ago, and they’ve been on fire during the winning streak, which began with a three-game sweep at Dodger Stadium last weekend.
In the eight-game streak, the Angels have hit .291 with a .903 OPS. They’ve scored 61 runs (7.6 per game) and hit 19 homers, including a franchise-record seven straight games with at least two homers.
Taylor Ward, the hottest hitter of them all, got the scoring started on Friday with a second-inning homer, his team-leading 15th of the season.
It was the ninth straight game in which Ward had an extra-base hit, which ties Darin Erstad’s franchise record. Erstad did it in 1998. Ward, who also had a sacrifice fly, also has driven in at least one run in seven straight games.
“It’s sick,” catcher Logan O’Hoppe said of Ward’s hot streak. “I’m really grateful my locker is next to his, because I’ve learned so much just from picking his brain about it. He’s helped me have better at-bats too. The conversations with him, and seeing how clear his head is and his ability to work through things is pretty impressive, and it’s helped me a lot more than he knows for sure.”
After that, the Angels kept adding runs against Marlins right-hander Sandy Alcantara, their former ace who now has an 8.04 ERA in his first season back from Tommy John surgery. The Angels took a 6-0 lead against Alcantara.
The offensive outburst was plenty to get Yusei Kikuchi his first victory with the Angels.
Just about one-third of the way into the first season of a three-year, $63 million contract, Kikuchi has largely delivered what the Angels hoped, with a 3.17 ERA.
This start summed up the way he’s pitched. The run prevention – which is obviously the most important part – has been good.
However, Kikuchi has failed to get past the sixth inning in any start. (He has completed six innings in six starts and only once failed to get through five.) One issue is that Kikuchi has walked 11.5% of the hitters he’s faced, which is up from 6% last year.
Kikuchi’s strikeout rate has dropped from 28% to 20.7%.
This outing was somewhat typical for Kikuchi. He did a nice job in keeping the Marlins off the scoreboard. He gave up seven hits and four walks, which hastened his exit after 5⅔ innings.
“I think the most important thing is try to keep the team in the game,” Kikuchi said through his interpreter. “I think the Marlins today had a good approach at the plate the first few innings. They didn’t swing at the first pitch. And then there are a few little cheapies that they got as well. That’s out of my control. So the biggest thing is just to keep the team in the game.”
Right-hander Hunter Strickland picked up the final out of the sixth inning with the help of a slick play from shortstop Zach Neto charging a slow roller, leaving the bases loaded and keeping the scoreless outing for Kikuchi.
Right-hander Shaun Anderson allowed the Marlins to get back in the game, allowing four runs on six hits.
A Jorge Soler homer in the eighth got back one of the runs, setting the stage for Kenley Jansen to pick up his 11th save of the season.
The Angels then hit the clubhouse to celebrate another victory, while keeping perspective that they still have a long way to go before they’ve accomplished their goal.
“It’s the same approach I was telling you guys when things were going bad,” O’Hoppe said. “We don’t want to talk about how great it’s going either. One thing I’m learning in my career is that the success can be just as toxic as the failure sometimes. Attack the plan at hand with a neutral head space, knowing that the game is tough. The game is really hard. Respect that and attack the plan at hand.”