Drury, Angels ride 4-run first to 5-3 win over Athletics
Brandon Drury had a two-run triple, and the Los Angeles Angels used a four-run first inning to beat the Oakland Athletics 5-3 on Tuesday night.
Mike Trout went 2-for-4 with a double, Shohei Ohtani had two stolen bases, and the Angels have alternated wins and losses over their past five games.
Griffin Canning (1-0) allowed three runs in five innings while striking out seven.
"Today, first and foremost, a really good team win. Some timely hitting, some good defense, and the bullpen did a great job," Canning said.
Shea Langeliers hit a home run, Mason Miller (0-1) gave up four runs in four innings, and the A's lost for the 10th time in their past 12 games.
"I mean, we didn't hit enough tonight, and they were able to hold the lead," Oakland manager Mark Kotsay said.
After Jace Peterson's scoring triple gave the A's an early lead, the Angels responded with four runs in the bottom of the first.
Drury tripled to center, scoring Trout and Anthony Rendon to put the Angels up 2-1 and giving him six RBIs through the first 11 innings of the four-game series.
Drury was driven in on Luis Rengifo's single, and Gio Urshela wrapped up the productive beginning with his own RBI single.
"I went out there and gave up the one right off the bat, so for them to kind of come back out, put up four, it was good," Canning said.
Canning, who picked up his first win since June 9, 2021 after missing most of that season because of an elbow injury and the 2022 campaign with a stress fracture in his back, built off that lead with a solid performance.
He gave up a solo homer to Langeliers on a full count in the fifth, and Canning started the sixth by giving up a ground-rule double to Brent Rooker. That was when manager Phil Nevin decided to pull Canning after a successful outing.
"If you take almost two years off, really, it's hard to get back," Nevin said. "It takes some time. But he's been really good for us. … We needed a lot of outs from him today, as many as we could, so he did a really nice job."
Rooker scored on Jordan Diaz's double to cut it to 4-3, but Taylor Ward singled in Urshela to put the Angels back up by two in the bottom half of the inning.
Unlike Monday's wild 11-10 extra-innings loss, Los Angeles got enough from their relievers to hold on, including a five-out save from Carlos Estevez.
"Knowing the way these past few games have been, I know the team needed me. My guys in the bullpen needed me too, and it feels great to go out there and show everyone that, 'Hey, I got your back,'" said Estevez, who got his fourth save.
NICE RESPONSE
It seemed like Miller wasn't going to make it through more than the first inning, based on the early activity in Oakland's bullpen, but he recovered enough to get through the fourth in his second career game.
"The positive there is that he settled in and went three scoreless," Kotsay said. "We talked about his process and what to take from this game, but overall it's not a terrible outing."
TRAINER'S ROOM
Angels: RHP Austin Miller wasn't available after feeling discomfort in his throwing arm before the game and will be shut down for the next three days. RHP Chase Silseth will be called up from Triple-A Salt Lake to take his spot in the bullpen. ... C Logan O'Hoppe underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder Tuesday. Expected to miss four to six months, he had been an unexpected contributor as a rookie with a .283 batting average, four homers and 13 RBIs in 16 games.
UP NEXT
A's RHP Luis Medina will make his Major League debut Wednesday. Acquired from the New York Yankees in a trade in August 2022, the 23-year-old from the Dominican Republic is known for generating top-tier velocity.
The Angels will go with LHP Patrick Sandoval (1-1), who is 3-0 with a 1.80 ERA in his past five starts against the Athletics. ___
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