Mike Trout’s 3-run homer sparks Angels to victory over Red Sox

BOSTON —The silver lining of Mike Trout missing a month with a knee injury was it gave him plenty of time to work on his swing.

Now, the results are showing.

Trout had three hits for the second time in three starts since coming off the injured list, including a towering three-run homer, to spark a six-run first inning in the Angels’ 7-6 victory over the Boston Red Sox on Monday night.

After missing a month with a bone bruise in his left knee, Trout now has eight hits in 14 at-bats since returning. Trout said he’s not surprised it’s come back this quickly, because he used the time off to “rest” his swing.

“I think it helped me out,” Trout said.

Trout was hitting .179 with a .726 OPS when he got hurt, which he said was because his swing path wasn’t right.

“I was cutting off every swing, not staying through the ball,” Trout said. “When your swing’s in the zone for a short period of time, and is out, you miss a lot, and you don’t recognize the stuff. The longer the barrel is in the zone (the better). Just looked at some video and grind it with the hitting coaches. And it’s been cool to see results.”

Trout said he took 30 to 40 swings a day, which was all his knee rehab would allow. It was apparently enough.

Trout didn’t do a rehab assignment, instead seeing about 30 pitches from an Angels minor league pitcher. Manager Ron Washington was somewhat skeptical that Trout would return to form immediately, so he put him in the No. 5 spot when he returned. He hadn’t hit lower than third since 2011.

Now, Trout has been so hot in the No. 5 spot that Washington wants to keep him there.

“He’s doing well where he is,” Washington said.

Trout had five hits in his first 10 at-bats, without a homer. He took care of that with a three-run shot in the first inning. That was sandwiched between homers from Zach Neto and Jo Adell in an historic inning.

The Angels are the first visiting team in the 115 seasons at Fenway Park to hit three homers in the first inning, according to ESPN researcher Sarah Langs. The Angels hadn’t hit three first-inning homers in any game since Sept. 3, 2016, when Kole Calhoun, Trout and Albert Pujols did it.

Neto, who hit his fifth leadoff homer of the year, now has 10 homers in 41 games. He missed the first three weeks of the season rehabbing from shoulder surgery.

Adell’s homer was his first of two in the game. Adell has hit .306 with four homers and a 1.099 OPS in his last 11 games.

No one is as hot as Trout, though.

His first-inning homer traveled 454 feet and nearly left the ballpark entirely. His third hit of the game was a 110 mph line drive off of the Green Monster.

That hit was the 1,675th of his career, which passed Tim Salmon for second on the Angels’ all-time list. Garret Anderson holds the record with 2,368.

Even though the Angels took a 6-0 lead before Tyler Anderson threw his first pitch of the game, there was still drama.

Anderson allowed one run through four innings. When the Red Sox got to see him for the third time, he couldn’t get an out.

In the fifth inning, Anderson was chased after two doubles, a walk and a single. Right-hander Hunter Strickland, who worked two innings the day before, then gave up a two-run double, which cut their lead to 6-5.

Left-hander Reid Detmers got through the sixth, escaping a bases-loaded jam after two soft hits and a walk. Right-hander Ryan Zeferjahn pitched a perfect seventh.

By the time right-hander Hector Neris took the mound in the eighth, he had an insurance run on Adell’s second homer. The margin was cut to one on Ceddanne Rafaela’s homer.

Closer Kenley Jansen, who pitched for the Red Sox last season, worked the ninth to record his 12th save of the season.

“A good team win, in general,” Anderson said. “The guys did a good job, obviously, putting up runs early and then I didn’t do my job, but the bullpen came in and did a good job of holding us in it, and the guys added a little more on.”