BOSTON (AP) — The Los Angeles Angels needed a strong outing by their starter after a disastrous series that wrapped up a disappointing homestand.
They got it from Ervin Santana.
The right-hander pitched 6 1-3 solid innings and the Angels beat the Boston Red Sox 5-3 on Tuesday night after getting swept in a four-game series against Tampa Bay.
“I don’t see our guys tense or anything,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. “They’re frustrated and they went through a very tough homestand. The only thing that’s going to cure that is to start to play to your potential and start to win.”
Mark Trumbo did that against Boston after getting just 14 hits in his previous 76 at-bats. His career-best 30th homer, a two-run shot, gave the Angels a 5-0 lead in the fifth.
“I can’t pinpoint one thing,” he said. “It just feels more like my swing when it’s going well. I always try and drive the ball, but maybe my swing was overly aggressive. I tried to tone it down a little bit.”
The Angels are four games behind Baltimore for the second wild-card berth in the AL.
Los Angeles’ playoff hopes took a beating when it went 3-7 on the homestand that ended Sunday.
But Santana’s performance was a rare strong outing for the Angels’ starters, who entered the game with a 6.76 ERA in in August and had allowed 27 runs in 17 1-3 innings in the series against the Rays. Santana is 3-0 in his last five starts after going 0-3 in his previous five.
“I always have confidence,” he said. “When we started to score runs it just builds my confidence more.”
Santana (7-10) allowed two runs on five hits with four strikeouts and two walks, leaving after throwing 100 pitches. He gave up three runs or less for the fourth time in five starts.
Mike Trout had two hits, giving him 139 in the first 100 games of his rookie season, the most since 1964 when Tony Oliva had 144 for Minnesota. But his streak of 30 successful stolen base attempts ended in the eighth when Jarrod Saltalamacchia threw him out at second base on a pitchout.
Ernesto Frieri pitched the ninth for his 15th save in 16 opportunities.
Aaron Cook (3-7) was touched for five runs on 11 hits in five innings and fell to 1-6 in his last eight starts. Boston lost for the fifth time in seven games overall.
“I felt pretty good. I felt like I was making pitches. They just were finding holes with those singles,” he said.
Until the homer that flew far over the left-field wall.
“Trumbo just hit a ball about as hard as you can hit one,” Cook said.
The Angels took a 1-0 lead in the third on an RBI single by Albert Pujols that drove in Trout, who had singled and moved to second on Cook’s wild pickoff attempt. It was Trout’s 97th run, breaking a tie with Joe Jackson of the Cleveland Indians for second-most runs in the first 100 games of a career since 1900. Jackson did it in 1911. Joe DiMaggio’s 100 runs in 1936 are the most.
Los Angeles added two runs on five singles in the fourth. Howie Kendrick and Alberto Callaspo got the first two hits. Erick Aybar then singled, scoring Kendrick and sending Callaspo to third. But Aybar was caught in a rundown and tagged between first and second. Chris Iannetta then singled in Callaspo.
The Angels made it 5-0 in the fifth on a single by Kendrys Morales and Trumbo’s 30th homer, surpassing his personal best set last year.
The Red Sox managed just four hits in the first five innings then cut the lead to 5-2 in the sixth on Saltalamacchia’s 21st homer of the year following a walk to Cody Ross. Boston scored its final run in the seventh when Scott Podsednik doubled, took third on a groundout and came home on a wild pitch by Jordan Walden.
“We have to play better collectively,” Ross said. “We’re just not playing together. It seems like we get chances, opportunities, have pitchers on the ropes and try to do too much.”
