10th inning

Christian Moore’s two homers help Angels rally to beat Red Sox

The Angels ran into a buzzsaw.

Boston southpaw Garrett Crochet scorched through them on Tuesday night, striking out 10 across seven scoreless innings. The 6-foot-6 Red Sox ace fired high-90s heat with success a day after Walker Buehler struggled to keep the Angels off the basepaths.

But with Crochet removed from the game in the eighth, the Angels discovered life. Enter the youngest-tenured Angel, Christian Moore. He walloped a home run over the left field wall for his second career home run to tie the score at one and help send the game to extra innings.

In the 10th inning, Moore played hero again, shooting a two-run home run to right field to walk-off the Red Sox and lift the Angels (39-40) to a 3-2 victory, bringing them one game below .500 and earning a blue sports drink shower in the process.

The announced crowd of 33,115 fans at Angel Stadium attempted to will a rally into existence in the seventh inning, cheering loudly as the heart of the Angels’ lineup hit after Mike Trout worked a leadoff walk. Crochet dispatched the Angels back to the dugout, inducing pinch-hitter Travis d’Arnaud to pop out and hold a 1-0 lead.

Angels fans would have to wait just one more Angels batter before Moore pulled his home run over the short left-field wall against reliever Greg Weissert. The Angels’ top prospect became the first Angel since 1966, and second overall, to have each of his first two home runs the tying or go-ahead variety in the seventh inning or later.

The Angels’ bullpen, which has emerged as one of the best in baseball during June to the tune of a 2.91 earned-run average entering Tuesday’s game, shut down the Red Sox (40-41) after acting manager Ray Montgomery pulled Tyler Anderson from the game after 4 ⅔ innings and 82 pitches.

Reid Detmers gave up the only run (unearned) out of the bullpen, the 10th inning single from Marcelo Mayer to give the Red Sox a 2-1 lead.

Anderson — flummoxed as he watched Montgomery come to the mound as he called on right-hander Connor Brogdon from the bullpen — has only finished the fifth inning twice in his past five starts. Despite the short start Tuesday, the outing was arguably his best in that span, striking out five and walking two, while giving up one run and two hits.

Angels closer Kenley Jansen, who left Monday’s game with shoulder cramps after throwing a few pitches below 90 mph, returned Tuesday and tossed a scoreless ninth.

Zach Neto left Tuesday’s game in the ninth after short-arming a throw, airmailing first baseman LaMonte Wade Jr. After a short talk with Montgomery and the team trainer, he walked to the dugout.

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Angels fall to Astros on wild pitch in the 10th inning

Mauricio Dubón scored the winning run on a wild pitch in the 10th inning, Jeremy Peña and Isaac Paredes opened the game with home runs, and the Houston Astros beat the Angels 3-2 on Friday night.

Peña led off the 10th with a single that advanced automatic runner Dubón to third. Dubón scored when Hunter Strickland, who hadn’t allowed a run in 14⅔ innings of his first 13 appearances with the Angels, threw a pitch behind the back of Paredes.

Houston closer Josh Hader (5-1) retired the side in order in the ninth and Bennett Sousa retired three straight batters in the 10th for his second save.

Angels starter Yusei Kikuchi gave up home runs to Pena and Paredes for a 2-0 Astros lead in the held the Astros to four hits, striking out nine and walking none, for the rest of his seven-inning start.

Jo Adell trimmed Houston’s lead to 2-1 in the fourth with a 426-foot homer off Astros starter Hunter Brown. Angels rookie Christian Moore, a first-round pick out of Tennessee in 2024, tied it 2-2 with his first major league homer to open the seventh.

Tempers flared in the third when Brown hit Angels shortstop Zach Neto in the elbow with a 95-mph sinker. Both benches and bullpens emptied, but no punches were thrown, and order was quickly restored.

Key moment: Astros center fielder Jake Meyers raced to the gap in left-center to make a spectacular, full-extension diving catch of Adell’s drive with a runner on first base and one out in the bottom of the eighth to preserve a 2-2 tie.

Key stat: The home runs by Peña and Paredes marked the first time in three years the Astros have opened a game with two homers. Jose Altuve and Peña last accomplished the feat on July 24, 2022, at Seattle.

Up next: Astros LHP Brandon Walter (0-0, 1.53 ERA) opposes Angels RHP José Soriano (4-5, 3.54) on Saturday night.

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Nolan Schanuel’s walk-off single gives Angels the win over the Athletics

Nolan Schanuel hit a single into shallow center field in the 10th inning for the first walk-off hit of his career to drive in Jo Adell and give the Angels a 2-1 win over the Athletics on Tuesday night.

Reid Detmers (2-2) struck out two of three batters to strand the automatic runner in the top of the 10th.

Hogan Harris (1-1) took the loss for the A’s, who have lost 22 of 26 games.

The Angels trailed 1-0 in the bottom of the eighth when Travis d’Arnaud hit left-hander T.J. McFarland’s first pitch for a pinch-hit homer and a 1-1 tie.

Angels starter José Soriano gave up one run and two hits and struck out a career-best 12 in seven innings. He walked two. He threw a career-high 110 pitches, 71 for strikes, and induced 22 swinging strikes.

The A’s Mitch Spence, making his second start since being moved from the bullpen, gave up three hits, struck out four and walked none in five scoreless innings.

Soriano was virtually untouchable through five no-hit innings in which he racked up nine strikeouts and walked one. He lost his no-hit bid in the sixth when Brent Rooker drove an RBI double to left-center field just beyond the reach of a diving Adell for a 1-0 A’s lead.

Veteran right-hander Hunter Strickland, who signed a minor league deal on May 6, escaped a runner-on-second, no-out jam in the eighth and has not yielded a run in 11 innings over nine appearances with the Angels.

D’Arnaud’s eighth-inning shot was the second pinch-hit homer of his career. His first came for the Atlanta Braves against the Colorado Rockies on Sept. 4, 2021.

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Dodgers vs. Padres lives up to the hype as L.A. prevails in 10th

Rivalries in baseball can sometimes be difficult to define.

There are the obvious ones. Like the Yankees and Red Sox. The Cardinals and Cubs. And for the Dodgers, going back to their founding in New York, a generations-old hatred for the Giants.

“By definition, you can’t just decide to choose your rivalry because one team gets good,” veteran third baseman Max Muncy said. “And for the Dodgers, that’ll always be the Giants.”

But periodically, there are other emotionally charged, highly competitive, and simmering clashes; often taking root between simultaneous contenders, bad-blooded division foes or closely situated fan bases sharing a mutual dislike.

Over the last half-decade, that’s what has slowly been built between the Dodgers and San Diego Padres.

And in their first renewal of the season on Monday night at Petco Park, an 8-7 extra-innings win for the Dodgers, the two clubs lived up to the matchup’s ever-growing hype.

“Both teams are good. The fan bases are very adamant. Both environments have been hostile over the last several years,” Muncy said. “It brings everything that a rivalry should bring.”

A traditional rivalry, it’s still not quite. The Dodgers have as many World Series titles as the Padres do playoff appearances (eight each). Since the Padres last won the National League West in 2006, the Dodgers have done it 13 times.

But after three playoff meetings in the last five years, and a seemingly tight division race on tap this season, Dodgers-Padres is now a full-blown, certifiably legitimate rivalry — at least in the eyes of Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.

“I think it’s become a rivalry,” Roberts said, “because the stakes have been higher.”

That was certainly the case last October, when the Dodgers outlasted the Padres in a memorable five-game National League Division Series.

But even entering Monday, the importance of this week’s three-game series at Petco Park — plus a four-game rematch between the teams next week at Dodger Stadium — had been magnified, the Dodgers leading the Padres by just one game in the National League West standings in their pursuit to defend last year’s World Series title.

“It’s going to be an intense series,” Roberts said. “It probably will feel like a playoff game tonight.”

It certainly played out that way.

Los Angeles Dodgers' Will Smith (16) has sunflower seeds tossed at him by Teoscar Hernandez.

Will Smith is showered in sunflower seeds thrown by Teoscar Hernández after hitting a two-run home run in the third inning against the Padres on Monday night.

(Orlando Ramirez / Associated Press)

Both teams scored twice in the first inning. The lead then changed hands three times between the second, when the Padres scored on a Will Smith throwing error; and the third, when Smith answered with a two-run homer to punctuate a three-run rally, only for the Padres to score three on a bases-loaded triple from Tyler Wade that got past a diving Teoscar Hernández in right center.

The Dodgers (40-27) got the game tied again in the fifth, with Hyeseong Kim doubling home Muncy in a rare opportunity against a left-handed pitcher (he is three-for-three in such situations this season).

The Padres (37-28) skirted even more trouble along the way. In the fourth, the Dodgers couldn’t take advantage of an infield pop-up that dropped between three Padres fielders. In the eighth, San Diego reliever Adrian Morejon misfired on the most routine of throws to first base with two outs, letting Shohei Ohtani reach second, but then struck out Freddie Freeman to escape unscathed.

But once the game reached the 10th, the Dodgers surged ahead. Andy Pages led off with a line-drive RBI double that outfielder Brandon Lockridge badly misread in left. Tommy Edman followed with an RBI single that ricocheted off the second base bag. And though closer Tanner Scott gave up an RBI double to Jackson Merrill — one at-bat after Manny Machado was rung up on a controversial called third strike — the former Padres left-hander limited the damage there.

Round 1 of Dodgers-Padres this year went to the defending champions. More heavyweight fights figure to follow.

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