David Fletcher had two hits and scored twice, Mike Trout drove in three runs and Ty Buttrey recorded a six-out save as the Angels snapped a four-game losing streak with a 4-3 victory over the Oakland Athletics on Saturday.
The Angels, who had lost eight of their previous nine games and entered the game in the Oakland Coliseum with the second-worst record in baseball (8-19), used Fletcher's leadoff double and two Oakland misplays to score one run and load the bases with one out in the first.
A bigger rally was thwarted by A's second baseman Tony Kemp, who made a backhanded diving catch of Brian Goodwin's 105-mph line drive and flipped to second for a double play.
A rare error by Oakland third baseman Matt Chapman, a two-time Gold Glove Award winner, on Fletcher's potential inning-ending double play in the second allowed another run to score, and the Angels to put two runners on.
Trout followed with a 111-mph liner over the glove of leaping shortstop Marcus Semien and all the way to the wall in left-center, a two-run double that scored Jo Adell and Luis Rengifo for a 4-0 lead. Adell had led off with a double, the first extra-base hit of his big league career, and Rengifo reached on an infield error.
Oakland chipped away at the lead with runs in the second, fourth and fifth innings off Angels starter Griffin Canning.
Mark Canha led off with a walk and scored on Kemp's two-out double to left-center in the second, Chapman led off the fourth with his ninth homer of the season, and Ramon Laureano singled and scored on Matt Olson's two-out double to right-center in the fifth.
Angels manager Joe Maddon pulled Canning in favor of right-hander Matt Andriese, who walked Chapman on a full-count breaking ball in the dirt, refusing to let the A's most dangerous hitter beat him. Andriese then struck out Canha with a 93-mph pitch to end the inning.
Andriese, who entered with a 7.47 earned-run average in his first six games, then retired the side in order in the sixth and seventh innings _ dropping his ERA to 6.50 _ before yielding to Buttrey, who retired the side in order in the eighth with the help of Trout's diving catch of Olson's leadoff liner to left-center.
With Buttrey needing only 12 pitches to complete the eighth, Maddon sent the right-hander out for the ninth. Buttrey needed only seven pitches to retire the side in order for his third save.
