ST. LOUIS — Mike Trout delivered in a way he hadn’t in a long time.
Trout hit a go-ahead home run in the ninth inning of the Angels’ dramatic 6-4 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday night.
It was the first time Trout had hit a go-ahead homer in the ninth since July 7, 2015. He had hit only two others in his career, both in 2014.
Trout came to the plate with the score tied because pinch-hitter Jake Lamb had led off the ninth with a 434-foot homer against Cardinals closer Giovanny Gallegos.
After Trout pulled a homer just inside the left field pole, the Angels added an insurance run on a Shohei Ohtani double and an Anthony Rendon single.
Closer Carlos Estévez finished it off with his seventh save.
The Angels (17-14) won their third straight game and got to three games over .500 for the first time this season. They also took Ohtani off the hook for a loss after he’d allowed four runs in five innings, despite a career-high equaling 13 strikeouts.
They can only hope that they didn’t suffer a loss with an injury to shortstop Zach Neto.
Neto left the game with a contusion on one of the fingers on his right hand.
Neto, who was hurt trying to bunt for a hit leading off the fifth, remained in the game to finish the at-bat, but then he came out.
Neto was initially listed as day-to-day.
Neto has provided some defensive stability in the middle infield and a quickly improving bat in his first three weeks in the major leagues.
Without him, the Angels would need to do some shuffling. It would probably mean more playing time for Luis Rengifo and more time at shortstop for Gio Urshela.
The injury to Neto came just after the Angels had surrendered a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the fourth.
Nolan Arenado led off with a double down the left-field line, and then Willson Contreras doubled down the right-field line. An out later, Ohtani left a sweeper over the middle of the plate and Dylan Carlson hit it just over the center field fence, for a two-run homer that gave the Cardinals a 4-3 lead.
Although Ohtani gave up as many hits in that inning as he had allowed in any of his six previous starts this season, he still had good enough stuff to equal his career high with 13 strikeouts.
His final strikeout was the 500th of his career.
More to come on this story.
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