Angels walk off Rangers to complete sweep behind Reid Detmers’ dominant outing

ANAHEIM — Even though Reid Detmers didn’t get the victory he deserved for his masterpiece on Sunday, at least the Angels did.

The Angels’ left-hander retired 24 of the 25 batters he faced through eight innings, with 14 strikeouts.

After Detmers was done, the Angels beat the Texas Rangers, 2-1, scoring the winning run on a botched play in the bottom of the ninth, completing the three-game sweep.

Until then, the story had been Detmers, who gave up a second-inning solo homer to Jake Berger and then nothing else. He retired the last 21 batters he faced.

Manager Kurt Suzuki nonetheless pulled Detmers with 96 pitches after eight. Right-hander Sam Bachman worked in and out of a bases-loaded jam in the top of the ninth.

With one out in the bottom of the inning, Jorge Soler singled and then Jo Adell was hit by a pitch. Oswald Peraza hit a grounder that second baseman Justin Foscue fielded. He stepped on second for the first out, but his throw to first was in the dirt. First baseman Jake Burger couldn’t handle it. The ball popped away from him and he couldn’t find it, as pinch-runner Donovan Walton scored the winning run.

With the victory, the Angels (20-34) secured their first sweep of the season and their first three-game winning streak since April 4-6.

It was a slow offensive day for the Angels, but Detmers kept them in the game with arguably the best pitching performance of his career.

There would be no argument normally, but Detmers pitched a no-hitter in 2022. In that game, he walked one and struck out two.

Detmers didn’t walk a batter on Sunday, and his 14 strikeouts were the most for an Angels pitcher since Andrew Heaney in 2019.

Detmers came into the game with a 5.07 ERA that manager Kurt Suzuki insisted was not indicative of how well he’d pitched. In his previous two starts, he was burned by walks once and by a string of softly hit balls finding holes in the other game.

This time, Detmers had no such troubles.

Detmers got a career-high 23 whiffs and 18 called strikes among his 96 pitches. The major league average for whiffs and called strikes is about 28%, and Detmers was at 43%.

No Angels starter had done better than 37% this season.

Detmers got to an 0-and-2 count on 12 of the 25 hitters he faced. The major league average is 25%.

While Detmers was dominating, the Angels hitters weren’t doing much with Texas left-hander MacKenzie Gore.

All their baserunners came in the third inning. The bottom two hitters in the order — Sebastian Rivero and Adam Frazier — each walked. With two outs, Mike Trout blooped a single into right field, driving in a run.

Their next baserunner came in the seventh inning.

More to come on this story.