*Photo from the Dallas Morning News*
In a tense showdown of division rivals, it was the superstars that made the difference. Chad Wallach homered, Shohei Ohtani hit two home runs, and the Los Angeles Angels rallied to defeat the Texas Rangers 9-6 in extra innings on Monday in Arlington.
The win goes down as the Angels 7th in their last 10 games, improving to 37-31 on the season. Once trailing 5-1 after the 3rd inning, the Angels outscored the Rangers 8-1 over the remainder of the game to secure a win in 12 innings to open the series.
Angels starter Tyler Anderson said after the game that "This was a fun win. It was a crazy one. Just a wild game with people playing positions they usually don’t play. Just a fun, scrappy win in general."
Ezequiel Duran gave the Rangers an early lead, making it 3-0 in the second inning thanks to a 3 run home run to left field. Mike Trout hit an RBI single in the top of the 3rd to get the Angels on the board and make it 3-1. Josh Jung then hit an RBI single and Mitch Garver added an RBI double to make it 5-1 Rangers. Zach Neto scored on a sac fly from Ohtani in the 5th to cut the deficit to 5-2.
Later in the 5th, Taylor Ward scored on a throwing error to make the deficit a 5-3 margin. Trout then scored on a wild pitch to make it a 5-4 game. Ohtani tied it in the 7th with a solo home run. Ohtani then led off the 12th with a two run home run, making it 7-5. Wallach then added a two run shot of his own, extending the lead to 9-5. Jung scored on an error to make it 9-6, with the Angels holding on from there.
Los Angeles manager Phil Nevin said of Ohtani that "He's on a nice streak right now. It’s fun to watch when he gets into those spots. You can also see that he’s having a lot of fun, too. I think you could see on the home runs, especially the second one, the emotion that he’s showing. He cares about this group quite a bit and is feeding into all the players."
Anderson got the start for the Angels, allowing 5 runs on 8 hits and two walks in 6 innings pitched. Chris Devenski, Jacob Webb, and Carlos Estevez each threw a scoreless inning, with Sam Bachman getting the win thanks to two scoreless innings. Aaron Loup closed it out in the 12th.
Dane Dunning was the starter for the Rangers, allowing 4 runs on 6 hits in 5 innings. Grant Anderson allowed a run in 1 2/3 innings, with Josh Sborz throwing 1 1/3 scoreless innings. Will Smith threw two shutout innings before Cole Ragans allowed 4 runs in 1 2/3 innings. Yerry Rodriguez also pitched.
Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said "That's tough luck, it is a tough loss. But like I said, you can't do any more than hit the ball hard. You look at the fight in this club, we're down and we get the tying run up there with a good hitter, and it just didn't happen that way. These are tough ones, but these are games you have to bounce back from."
Up next, the series continues for the teams on Tuesday night. Jaime Barria gets the start for the Angels, while Cody Bradford starts for the Rangers.
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