Drury homers twice to send Angels past Athletics 7-3 in season finale
Brandon Drury homered twice, doubled and drove in three runs, and the Los Angeles Angels wrapped up their eighth consecutive losing season with a 7-3 victory over the major league-worst Oakland Athletics on Sunday.
Shohei Ohtani was in the Angels' dugout again, cheering on his teammates for the final two games of what could be the two-way superstar's final weekend with the club. Ohtani can become a free agent after the World Series, and the Halos haven't made the playoffs or finished higher than third in the AL West in his six years in Anaheim.
Randal Grichuk also homered for the Halos, and Eduardo Escobar had two hits. After Escobar's RBI single in the fifth, the Angels saved the ball for the 34-year-old infielder, whose playing future is uncertain.
The Angels finished their latest hugely disappointing season at 73-89, matching their 2022 record to close out their ninth straight non-playoff campaign. They've got the majors' longest active streak of losing records, and their playoff drought is matched by Detroit for the majors' longest.
Los Angeles was 56-51 at the trade deadline and made several acquisitions in a bid to contend, but flopped immediately after the deadline with a seven-game skid, eventually going 17-38 in the season's final two months while losing Ohtani, Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon and Taylor Ward for the year to injury.
Brent Rooker hit his career-best 30th homer and also doubled and singled for the A's. Esteury Ruiz stole his 67th base of the season in the third inning, breaking the AL single-season record for a rookie set by Kenny Lofton in 1992.
Oakland finished its funereal season at 50-112, posting the franchise's worst record since the 1916 Philadelphia A's after going 60-102 last season. With reviled owner John Fisher's Vegas relocation dreams hanging over the Coliseum, the A's have endured their first back-to-back 100-loss seasons in Oakland and the franchise's first since 1964-65 in Kansas City.
Carson Fulmer (1-1) yielded two hits and three walks over five scoreless innings for the Angels in his first major league start since Sept. 24, 2019. The former eighth overall pick by the White Sox spent all of last season in the Dodgers' farm system before joining the Angels in May and getting called up last week.
JP Sears (5-14) yielded four hits and three runs over four innings for the A's.
Drury connected in the first inning for the 25th homer of his solid debut season with the Angels. Grichuk homered in the third inning of possibly his final game with the Halos, who drafted him right before Mike Trout in 2009, but traded him in late 2013 and finally reacquired him this season.
Drury then doubled in the fourth and scored on Jo Adell's single, and he hit a two-run shot for his 26th homer in the fifth.
CONTINUANCE
Nolan Schanuel didn't play for the Angels, preserving his streak of reaching base in 29 consecutive games to begin his major league career into next season. The Halos' 2023 first-round pick is tied for the third-longest such streak in MLB history.
IN ATTENDANCE
The Angels had 26,539 fans at the season finale, finishing with 2,640,575 at the Big A this season. That's more than last season's 2,457,461, but fewer than every other season of full-capacity crowds in Anaheim since 2002, when the franchise's only World Series championship led to 17 consecutive seasons of at least 3 million fans.
UP NEXT
Athletics: Host Colorado in their spring training opener Feb. 24.
Angels: Host the Dodgers in their spring training opener Feb. 24.