ANAHEIM — The Angels’ 7-6, 10-inning victory over the Dodgers on Tuesday night was something of a tribute to Ron Washington.
Washington, their manager who is out for the rest of the season on a medical leave, frequently talks about players “doing what the game is asking them to do.”
The Angels did just that, everything from getting down bunts to putting the ball in play with a runner at third to turning a triple play, which certainly goes above and beyond the normal situational baseball.
It added up to a victory that provided everyone in the Angel Stadium sellout crowd of 44,741 plenty to get their hearts pumping, as the Angels overcame Shohei Ohtani’s go-ahead homer in the top of the ninth before winning on Jo Adell’s walk-off RBI single in the 10th.
The Dodgers and their fans are frustrated by three straight losses, costing them their spot alone at the top of the National League West. The Dodgers (68-52) are now dead even with the surging San Diego Padres, having lost their first-place margin for the first time since June 13. The Dodgers are 10-13 in their last 23 and have lost eight of their past 11 one-run games.
“We’ve still got to be better on all fronts,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And now it’s a new season. You look at the standings, and we just got to play better baseball and find ways to win games.”
Which is exactly what the Angels seem to be able to do better against the Dodgers than they do against just about anyone else. The Angels (58-62) are on the fringes of the American League postseason race, but they’re now perfect in five games against the Dodgers, thanks to an uncanny ability to come up with exactly what they need when facing their rivals.
The Angels stretched their winning streak in the Freeway Series to six games, including last year. It equals their longest winning streak in the series, a streak that stretched from 2003 to 2004.
“It’s good beating the foes on the other side,” Angels shortstop Zach Neto said. “Hopefully this gives us a lot of momentum, going into tomorrow, and hopefully into Sacramento (this weekend). And hopefully we get to turn this around. We’re playing very good baseball right now, I think.”
Never mind that the Angels lost their previous three series before this one. There were enough good things in this game for them to block all of that out of their memories.
The eighth triple play in Angels history goes a long way toward creating positive vibes.
With the score tied at 5-all in the sixth, the Dodgers were rallying against Angels left-hander Brock Burke, who gave up singles to Miguel Rojas and Daulton Rushing to start the inning.
Ohtani then hit a soft liner up the middle, where Neto grabbed it a couple of steps behind the bag. He stepped on second base for the second out and threw to first baseman Nolan Schanuel, who tagged Rushing to complete the triple play.
Neto said he’d never even seen a triple play in person – he was on a rehab assignment when the Angels turned one in 2023 – and it took some time for it sink in.
“I realized it about an inning and a half after,” Neto said. “I was like, dang, I just made a triple play. That’s pretty cool.”
Neto and Burke conceded there is some luck involved in any triple play, and in this case it was that Rushing should not have gotten so far off first base.
“The ball’s in front of him,” Roberts said, “and bolting toward second base, that’s something that can’t happen.”
After the triple play, the Angels continued executing the fundamentals in the ninth and 10th.
Just after Ohtani put the Dodgers on top with a solo home run against Kenley Jansen in the top of the ninth, the Angels came back against left-hander Alex Vesia, the Dodgers’ closer at the moment.
Vesia gave up a hit to Luis Rengifo and then he walked Logan O’Hoppe after getting ahead of him, 0-and-2. After a Bryce Teodosio sacrifice, an intentional walk to Neto and a Nolan Schanuel fly ball, the score was tied.
Connor Brogdon – who was briefly a Dodger – set his former team down in the order in the top of the 10th, preventing the free runner from scoring.
In the bottom of the inning, Christian Moore dropped down a perfect bunt. Catcher Will Smith waited for it to roll foul, but it stopped on the line and Moore had a hit.
With the infield playing in, Adell hit a bouncer over the head of third baseman Max Muncy, ending the game.
“These guys never quit,” Angels interim manager Ray Montgomery said. “But that was exceptionally not quitting. So many people contributed along the way. When you talk about a team effort, people coming off the bench, people doing different things, I think everybody can take a piece of that one tonight.”
The rally spoiled Ohtani’s 43rd homer of the season, which was his fourth straight game with a homer. It was also his 101st career homer at the ballpark that he used to call home.
The Dodgers also could regret that they didn’t get more out of a bases-loaded opportunity in the fifth inning. Andy Pages drew a walk to push home the tying run, but then Michael Conforto struck out. Conforto is 12 for 77 (.156) with 18 strikeouts and 18 RBIs with runners in scoring position this season.
It was the fifth time in the past three games that the Dodgers loaded the bases, and the only two runs they got out of those were on walks.
“This is where the losses happen,” Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “It’s like, when we hit, we don’t pitch. When we pitch, we don’t hit. Once we start rounding in shape, we’ll be OK. We’re frustrated in here. But no one’s really panicking in here.”
In the other clubhouse, they are beyond panicking about the standings. The Angels barely have a heartbeat in the postseason race. Still, games like this give Montgomery a glimpse at where they are trying to go.
“These are the games that you want to play in,” Montgomery said. “This is the atmosphere that these guys deserve to be in. This is what they’re learning to do. And I’ve been in places where I felt this before, and I know what it feels like when it starts to turn and this is what starts it. This is the type of thing you see from teams that are resilient. They win. They never back down from the moment. And we have guys that are stepping up in the moment every day. Sometimes it gets clouded because of the record, but the reality of it is you can feel it.”