WEST SACRAMENTO —The Angels finished a disappointing weekend on a high note.
After losing the first two games against the A’s, the Angels salvaged the final game of the series by winning, 11-5, in 10 innings on Sunday afternoon.
The six-run 10th inning that put the game away included a homer, a triple, a sacrifice bunt, a sacrifice fly, aggressive baserunning and three walks.
“Literally, a piece of everything,” interim manager Ray Montgomery said. “It’s fun to watch. That’s what we preach, from Day One of spring training. We did it all in one inning.”
Jo Adell, who started the day with a three-run homer, drove in the tie-breaking run with a single in the 10th. A perfect sacrifice bunt from Logan O’Hoppe set up Christian Moore to drive in an insurance run. With the infield drawn in, Moore hit a bouncer to shortstop Darrell Hernaiz, whose throw home was not in time to get Taylor Ward.
Luis Rengifo then tripled, driving in two more, and he scored on Bryce Teodosio’s sacrifice fly.
Zach Neto followed with his 21st homer of the season, a 436-foot blast to left, completing the six-run outburst.
The Angels (60-64) had been in jeopardy of an embarrassing sweep, which would have been particularly disheartening after the high of a sweep against the Dodgers earlier in the week.
“You can’t let these fester long,” Adell said of the previous two losses. “That’s how you get in trouble. You start worrying about what happened the day before. I think we did a really good job turning the page today and just going back out there.”
Although the Angels had an early three-run lead on Adell’s homer and a two-run lead in the sixth, they didn’t get a single baserunner in the seventh, eighth or ninth innings. Closer Kenley Jansen then had to escape a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the ninth to get the game into extra innings.
“He wasn’t feeling himself when he came in,” Adell said. “He was just able to just kind of do what he does, which is go in and find a way to get the job done. And that was big for us. And once we got back out there, we were confident where we were in the lineup that we’re going to get something done.”
The Angels never trailed in this game, but they had to keep fighting off the A’s after taking a quick lead on Adell’s three-run homer in the first.
Angels starter José Soriano gave those runs back by allowing homers on back-to-back pitches in the third inning. The Angels went up again, 5-3, on Moore’s two-run single in the fifth, but Soriano gave up another homer, to Lawrence Butler in the sixth. The game-tying run was charged to Soriano after he left the game with two outs in the sixth.
It was the first time in Soriano’s career that he allowed three homers in a game.
“I’m not going to say I’m very happy about it,” Soriano said through an interpreter, “but we got the victory. That’s all we needed. That’s all I want.”
Montgomery suggested that Soriano pitched better than his line indicated, particularly in this hitter-friendly ballpark.
“I thought he was great, the home runs aside,” Montgomery said. “I pushed him a little bit there. He was adamant he was in a good spot, and he gave us what he had. I thought he handled this lineup as well as you could.”
Left-hander Reid Detmers picked up five outs in the seventh and eighth – including two strikeouts on six pitches to start the eighth – and Luis Garcia recorded the final out. Jansen then got in and out of trouble in the ninth.
The afternoon started out well for the Angels when they took a 3-0 lead in the first inning.
Adell, who came up just short of a grand slam in the first inning of Saturday’s loss, didn’t miss when he had the chance in the first inning on Sunday. Adell crushed the first pitch 115 mph, lining it over the left field fence for a three-run homer. It was his 26th homer of the season, an ongoing career high.
“I was struggling first couple days, and just kind of wasn’t getting to the pitches I think I should get to,” Adell said. “I just was going to go out today and be aggressive. I remembered (Jeffrey) Springs, when he threw against us, and I was going to go out and attack, so that’s what I did.”