ANAHEIM — The way the Angels have been hitting, it seemed like it would take a shutout from their starting pitcher for them to snap a seven-game losing streak.
They nearly got one from an unlikely source, soft-throwing right-hander Kyle Hendricks allowing one run and four hits over 7⅔ innings and the Angels busting out for four runs in the sixth inning of a 5-2 victory over the Detroit Tigers on Saturday night at Angel Stadium.
Hendricks gave up just two singles and faced one batter over the minimum through seven innings before making his only mistake, an elevated curveball that Spencer Torkelson belted for a solo homer in the eighth to trim the Angels lead to 5-1.
The former Capistrano Valley High star, who believed he was tipping pitches while going 0-3 with a 6.65 ERA in his first five starts, struck out three and walked none to earn his first win in an Angels uniform after signing a one-year, $2.5 million deal with his hometown team over the winter.
“It’s super special for the family, growing up here, coming to these ballgames – it means a lot getting this one,” Hendricks said. “I felt much better about the ball coming out, deception stuff, a couple of things we changed mechanically … it’s just a matter of execution and not tipping [pitches].”
Hendricks masterfully mixed his 79 mph changeup, 86 mph sinker, 72 mph curveball and a sprinkling of 87 mph fastballs to keep a Tigers team that had pounded the Angels for 19 runs and 27 hits in the first two games of the series off-balance. He did not throw one pitch faster than 88.3 mph.
“He was back-dooring pitches, he used his changeup, he got ahead of them with his breaking stuff, and he was able to recognize when he can shoot that 88 mph fastball,” Angels manager Ron Washington said. “It looks like he’s throwing 98 mph when you know how to pitch, which he does, and things fall into place with his sequencing.”
Detroit put runners on second and third with one out off Angels left-hander Brock Burke in the top of the ninth when Washington summoned closer Kenley Jansen, who gave up six runs and six hits in the ninth inning of Friday night’s loss.
“I’m out there talking to Burke, I look up to get [Jansen] and he’s already there,” Washington said. “We told him if they got two on that he was coming into the game. You saw how badly he wanted it.”
Jansen got Riley Greene, who hit two homers in the ninth inning Friday night, to ground out to first base, a run scoring, and Colt Keith to line out to shortstop to end the game, notching his seventh save of the season and 454th of his career.
“You just gotta go back out there,” Jansen said. “We’re all gonna suck one day, and you have to be accountable when that happens. We had a great chance to win [Friday night] and I feel like I let my team down. But today was for me to pick up my teammates and help us get that win.”
The Tigers gift-wrapped the first run of the game for the Angels when right fielder Kerry Carpenter and Greene, the center fielder, collided on a Kyren Paris routine fly ball to the gap with two outs in the second inning.
The ball dropped for an error charged to Carpenter, allowing Travis d’Arnaud, who led off with a double and took third on Luis Rengifo’s groundout, to score for a 1-0 lead.
The Angels pushed the lead to 5-0 with a four-run sixth, a rally that began with singles by Nolan Schanuel and Jorge Soler off Tigers right-hander Jack Flaherty, the former Westlake-Harvard High star who helped the Dodgers win the World Series last year.
Taylor Ward flied out to center, but d’Arnaud walked to load the bases, and Rengifo grounded a first-pitch curve into center field for a two-run single and a 3-1 lead.
Gustavo Campero struck out, but Paris, mired in a 2-for-40 slump in which he had struck out 23 times and walked once, roped a two-run single to left field to make it 5-1 and knock Flaherty out of the game.
“We needed somebody to come through in some situations, and Rengifo gave us the two-run single, and then Kyren got us another one,” Washington said after the Angels won for only the fifth time in 20 games. “We needed everything we got tonight. Everything.”