ANAHEIM — Patrick Sandoval continues to show that he’s a part of the pitching solution the Angels have needed for the past several years.
Sandoval carried a shutout into the eighth inning in the Angels’ 4-1 victory over the Oakland A’s on Sunday afternoon.
Seven starts into the season, Sandoval has a 1.79 ERA, and the Angels are 6-1 when he’s pitched.
“Outstanding,” Manager Joe Maddon said. “This is turning into a typical performance for him.”
He got the offensive support he needed mostly from Mike Trout, who drove in a run in the second, scored a run in the fifth and drove himself in with his 12th homer of the season, in the seventh. Trout is hitting .323 with a 1.133 OPS.
Shohei Ohtani started the Angels scoring when he led off the game with a 443-foot homer to straightaway center field.
“It’s awesome to see them clicking and hitting bombs,” Sandoval said. “It’s great.”
Trout and Ohtani are two of baseball’s biggest stars, but their presence hasn’t been enough for the Angels because they needed more pitchers to do what Sandoval has done.
The 25-year-old left-hander faced the same team as he beat last Sunday, but in that game he worked around some walks, poor command and the absence of his best pitch, his changeup.
This time, he had everything working.
“Changeup was better, the slider has been outstanding and the fastball command overall I thought was better,” Maddon said. “For my money, when he has fastball command, he should normally be pitching in the seventh, eighth and ninth inning. The other stuff, they don’t get good swings at it.”
Sandoval retired the first 10 hitters of the game before Chad Pinder reached on an error by second baseman Luis Rengifo. Sandoval responded by striking out the next two hitters to get out of the inning.
“He picked up his teammate,” Maddon said. “So to me that is a real indicator of a leader on the mound.”
Shortly after that, Sandoval admitted that he let the thought of a no-hitter enter in his mind. He gave up a hit the next inning, when Kevin Smith punched an 85 mph changeup into center field for a clean single.
It was the third hit that Sandoval allowed on his changeup in two games against the A’s, after not allowing any hits on the pitch in his first five starts.
Sandoval seemed to get sharper as the game progressed, getting swings and misses on his changeup and slider. He also saw his fastball velocity tick up to his customary 92-93 mph range after starting at 90-91 because he felt a little “heavy.”
The A’s finally ended his shutout bid in the eighth inning. Smith hit a routine fly ball that Tyler Wade lost in the sun in right field, for a double. An out later, Smith scored on Christian Pache’s bloop single. Sandoval then walked Luis Barrera, ending his day.
Sandoval was visibly frustrated when he was pulled from the game.
“I never want to come out of the game,” Sandoval said. “I know if I’m not performing well or whatever, I definitely understand getting pulled, but there’s never a time when I want to give the ball up, but if we win, it doesn’t matter.”
Ryan Tepera struck out Sheldon Neuse and Seth Brown to strand two runners in the eighth. Tepera has retired all five batters he’s faced since his nightmarish outing last week in Texas, when he didn’t retire any of five batters.
Tepera said he had been overthrowing in Texas, and he made a slight adjustment to dial it back a notch.
“Felt good,” Tepera said. “One of the better days I’ve felt. Going in the right direction.”
Closer Raisel Iglesias struck out all three hitters he faced in the ninth to record his second straight save after suffering a loss on Wednesday in Texas, and a blown save last Saturday in Oakland.
“That’s the way it’s supposed to work,” Maddon said. “We’ve got a really good back end of the bullpen. You don’t run away from them because they’ve had a difficult time. For me, you want to get them back out. more often actually, not less often.”
