The Los Angeles Angels come to Baltimore this weekend with some momentum after taking two of three in Detroit. They will look to pick on the struggling Orioles when the weekend series starts Friday night.
The Angels are coming off of a 13-0 victory over the Tigers on Thursday afternoon, a game in which they crushed five home runs.
Angels slugger Albert Pujols became the third player in history to produce 2,000 career RBIs, reaching the milestone with a solo homer in the third inning, the 639th long ball of his career.
Los Angeles also got two homers and four RBI from Tommy La Stella, and Kole Calhoun and Justin Bour also went deep. The 13 runs were the Angels’ high for the season.
The offense also might get some help in Baltimore. The Orioles’ young pitching staff has given up a major-league-high 80 homers, and balls are known to fly out of Oriole Park at Camden Yards when the weather gets warmer.
Mike Trout is working at coming out of a slump. He was in a 10-for-46 (.217) funk before going 1-for-2 with a sacrifice fly and a walk on Thursday.
“Sometimes you need to get back and feel like yourself,” Trout told the Los Angeles Times after going 0-for-4 on Wednesday. “The last few weeks, I’ve been trying to get back to that feeling.”
Trout is hitting .284 with seven homers and 21 RBIs this season — respectable for most players but disappointing for a player with his track record.
Angels designated hitter Shohei Ohtani made his first appearances of the season in the Detroit series. He was 0-for-7 in his first two games but got his first two hits of the year in the series finale, including an RBI single in the first inning.
The Orioles are coming off of a tough 2-1, 12-inning home loss to the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday night. Boston’s Jackie Bradley Jr. robbed Trey Mancini of a homer with a leaping catch at the wall in the 11th, and Andrew Benintendi hit the game-winning homer one inning later.
Baltimore struck out a club-record 22 times in the game, but the Orioles stayed right with the Red Sox during the three-game series. Boston won twice but produced just an 11-10 edge in total runs.
“(The Wednesday loss) sucks, no doubt about it,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “But I’m looking out for our club, and I’m interested in how we compete and how we play. We’re going to develop on how to win.”
The Orioles have dropped two in a row, but their starting pitching is slowly coming around. Dylan Bundy, John Means and Andrew Cashner combined to give Baltimore three quality starts in the past four games, each going at least six innings and giving up one run or none.
Even better has been the work of Mychal Givens, who is making a bid to take over the closer’s role. Givens has not given up a run in any of his four appearances this month, covering 5 2/3 innings. He has three saves in that span.
Right-hander Dan Straily (1-2, 7.43 ERA) gets the start Thursday for Baltimore against righty Trevor Cahill (1-3, 6.95).
Straily hasn’t has much success against the Angels, producing a 2-4 career mark with a 7.49 ERA in nine starts. He has yet to pitch more than five innings in six appearances (five starts) this year.
Cahill is 3-1 with a 1.97 ERA versus the Orioles in five games, all starts. However, is 0-2 with a 10.91 ERA in his past four starts overall.