Hamilton Homers In 10th To Lift Angels Over Astros
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) Josh Hamilton homered with one out in the 10th inning to give the Los Angeles Angels a 6-5 victory over the Houston Astros on Saturday night.
Mark Trumbo also homered and drove in two more runs with his first triple of the season. Hamilton sent an 0-2 pitch from Josh Fields (1-3) to right-center for his 18th home run.
Ernesto Frieri (1-4) pitched two scoreless innings for the win.
L.J. Hoes greeted the right-hander with a line drive down the right-field line leading off the ninth and legged it to second. Umpire Eric Cooper called him safe despite the protestations of Angels manager Mike Scioscia and shortstop Erick Aybar, who appeared to tag Hoes on the back as he slid by.
Cooper and the rest of his crew huddled and reversed the call to an out, resulting in a single for Hoes and leading to a lengthy and animated argument between Cooper and Astros manager Bo Porter. Frieri then struck out four of his next five batters.
Brett Wallace homered and drove in three runs for the Astros.
Philip Humber relieved Houston starter Dallas Keuchel in the fifth and pitched 2 2-3 innings, giving up the tying run in the seventh on Aybar's two-out RBI single after Mike Trout walked and stole second.
Angels right-hander Garrett Richards gave up five runs and a career-high 12 hits through six-plus innings in his 21st big league start, striking out seven and walking none. He was coming off his first complete game in the majors, a 2-1 loss at Yankee Stadium last Monday.
Keuchel gave up four runs and eight hits in four-plus innings. The 25-year-old left-hander, who threw a career-high 116 pitches over 8 2-3 innings last Sunday in a 6-1 loss to Texas, was removed by Porter with a 5-4 lead after walking the first two batters in the fifth.
The Astros pulled ahead 5-4 in this seesaw affair with three runs in the top half. Wallace tied it with his 10th homer, sending Richards' 2-2 pitch into the left-field bullpen after a single by Robbie Grossman. Jose Altuve followed with a single and scored on a two-out double by designated hitter Chris Carter, who had a career-high five RBIs, including a three-run homer, in Friday's series-opening 8-2 win.
Trumbo, the only Angels player to appear in every game this season before Scioscia gave him Friday off, returned to the lineup with his .236 average and hit his 27th homer into the center-field trees leading off the second.
One inning later, the Angels' cleanup hitter followed two-out singles by Collin Cowgill and Trout with an opposite-field triple to right, giving Trumbo 78 RBIs and tying Trout for the club lead. Aybar capped the rally with an RBI double that extended the margin to 4-2.
Houston took a 2-1 edge in the third after Richards gave up singles to his first four batters, including infield hits by Jonathan Villar and Grossman and an RBI single by Wallace. Villar scored on Altuve's double-play grounder.
NOTES: Frieri became the 16th Angels pitcher to be credited with a victory this season, matching their total for each of the previous three years. The club record is 19 in 2000, when reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa led the club with 10 wins and no starter had more than eight. ... Fifteen players on the Astros' 25-man roster have spent time in the minors this season. Porter has started at least four different players at every defensive position except catcher. ... Trout, playing in his 300th big league game, extended his on-base streak to 39 consecutive games - second-longest in club history behind SS Orlando Cabrera's 63-game stretch in 2006. ... The Angels and Astros entered with the two highest error totals in the AL, and the two highest team ERAs.
