Angels ride 4-run first inning to victory over Miller, A’s
ANAHEIM — Mason Miller, the A’s hard-throwing rookie right-hander making his second big-league start, gave up four runs in the first inning in a 5-3 loss to the Angels Tuesday night as Oakland lost for the 10th time in its last 12 games.
The Angels’ Brandon Drury had a two-run triple to key the first-inning uprising and give him six RBIs in the first 11 innings of the series.
Mike Trout went 2-for-4 with a double, Shohei Ohtani had two stolen bases, and the Angels have alternated wins and losses over their past five games.
Griffin Canning (1-0) allowed three runs in five innings while striking out seven.
Miller, who threw 12 pitches that clocked at least 100 mph in the first inning, was nearly pulled before the inning could end. However, he struck out Matt Theiss on his 39th pitch of the inning to escape additional trouble.
Miller then went on to retire nine of his final 10 batters, including back-to-back impressive strikeouts of Trout and Ohtani in the second inning. Miller finished his four innings of work with six strikeouts and just one walk.
“The positive there is that he settled in and went three scoreless,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. “We talked about his process and what to take from this game, but overall it’s not a terrible outing.”
Meanwhile, the A’s offense ran into trouble against Canning one night after scoring 11 runs on 14 hits, including five home runs in an 11-10 win.
“I mean, we didn’t hit enough tonight, and they were able to hold the lead,” Kotsay said.
After Jace Peterson’s scoring triple gave the A’s an early lead, the Angels responded with four runs in the bottom of the first.
Drury tripled to center, scoring Trout and Anthony Rendon to put the Angels up 2-1. Drury was driven in on Luis Rengifo’s single, and Gio Urshela wrapped up the productive beginning with his own RBI single.
Canning, who picked up his first win since June 9, 2021 after missing most of that season because of an elbow injury and the 2022 campaign with a stress fracture in his back, built off that lead with a solid performance.
He gave up a solo homer to A’s catcher Langeliers on a full count in the fifth, and Canning started the sixth by giving up a ground-rule double to Brent Rooker.
That was when manager Phil Nevin decided to pull Canning after a successful outing.
“If you take almost two years off, really, it’s hard to get back,” Nevin said. “It takes some time. But he’s been really good for us. … We needed a lot of outs from him today, as many as we could, so he did a really nice job.”
Rooker scored on Jordan Diaz’s double to cut it to 4-3, but Taylor Ward singled in Urshela to put the Angels back up by two in the bottom half of the inning.
Unlike Monday’s wild 11-10 extra-innings loss, Los Angeles got enough from its relievers to hold on, including a five-out save from Carlos Estevez.
LONG’S OAKLAND DEBUT
Left-hander Sam Long, who was acquired from the Giants Sunday for cash considerations, made his A’s debut and threw two scoreless innings. He gave up one hit and struck out one batter.
MEDINA’S MLB DEBUT
A’s RHP Luis Medina will make his Major League debut Wednesday. Acquired from the New York Yankees in a trade in August 2022, the 23-year-old from the Dominican Republic is known for generating top-tier velocity.
The Angels will go with LHP Patrick Sandoval (1-1), who is 3-0 with a 1.80 ERA in his past five starts against the Athletics.