ANAHEIM — Zach Plesac only has to look down the Angels’ bench if he is looking for some inspiration on how to overcome adversity.
Plesac struggled to find the strike zone, while Luis Rengifo continued to produce offensively and Logan O’Hoppe delivered the big blow in the Angels’ 5-2 victory against the Detroit Tigers on Friday night that extended the club’s winning streak to a season-best five games.
One day after Rengifo took the lead in the American League batting chase with a .312 average, he celebrated by lifting a two-run home run to left-center field in the first inning. It was his second home run in as many nights against Detroit.
Rengifo also singled to start an eighth-inning rally and scored the go-ahead run on O’Hoppe’s two-out home run on the first pitch he saw from Tigers right-hander Shelby Miller. It was the 11th of the season for O’Hoppe and his fourth in the past 15 games.
Rengifo has not only been effective on offense this season, he has managed to lift his game on defense as well and the turnaround started when he hit something of a rock bottom in April.
Defensive struggles on a road trip to Tampa Bay and Cincinnati in April inspired Rengifo to put a little focus on his infield work and the increased attention to detail has shown up on offense as well.
“I saw a shift (in Rengifo) in Cincinnati when (Jose) Soriano was throwing a no-hitter into the sixth inning and he started booting balls out there,” Angels manager Ron Washington said. “We had just left Tampa and he was booting balls out there.
“But that last time in Cincinnati, that’s when things started clicking in. That’s when he started the game serious. That’s when he started to take his work ethic serious.”
Plesac can only hope to channel the same energy after he was unable to find his command in the second inning and could not protect the early two-run lead. After two quick outs in the second, the Tigers’ Ryan Kreider singled. Wenceel Perez was down 1-and-0 in the count before everything changed.
Plesac proceeded to throw 16 of the next 19 pitches out of the strike zone and the ensuing four consecutive walks tied the score at 2-2. Jose Marte came in from the bullpen and ended the threat by getting Colt Keith on a soft comebacker.
Marte’s out was only the start of the bullpen’s heavy lifting. Marte went 1⅓ scoreless innings before Matt Moore contributed a scoreless frame. Hunter Strickland went two scoreless before Luis Garcia (3-0) took over for a scoreless eighth.
Right-hander Carlos Estevez finished off his 16th save with a perfect ninth inning.
Tigers starter Kenta Maeda was forced from the game in the sixth inning after taking a 94-mph Taylor Ward comebacker to the midsection. Maeda gave up two runs on six hits over 5⅓ innings, while Miller (4-6) was charged with all three runs in the eighth.
Of Plesac’s 57 total pitches, just 29 were for strikes as he gave up just one hit but four total walks with three strikeouts in 2⅔ innings. Of the five Angels pitchers that followed, the group did not walk a batter in 6⅓ innings.
The Tigers had just two hits one night after they were held to four in the series opener.
More to come on this story.