HOUSTON _ The Angels' six-game losing streak, which began with the pitching struggling and morphed into an offensive outage, is over.
The Angels beat the Houston Astros, 5-2, on Tuesday night, combining both sides of the game in the nice tidy way Mike Scioscia hopes for when refers to getting a "game on our terms."
They took a three-run lead in the fifth on Albert Pujols' tie-breaking homer, the 593rd of his career, and the pitching made the lead stand.
The bullpen did it in a slightly unconventional fashion. Cam Bedrosian _ the best reliever, although not officially the "closer" _ entered in the eighth to face the middle of the Houston order. Bedrosian needed just six pitches to get a strikeout and a double play. After such a quick inning, he stayed out in the ninth and locked up his third save of the season.
Coming into the game on a 20-inning scoreless streak, the Angels did at least a couple things differently on Tuesday.
Scioscia went back to the lineup he used on opening day, after having gradually jumbled it over the previous week. The Angels also scrapped pre-game batting practice on the field, instead hitting in the cages.
Whether any of that was directly related, the Angels nonetheless got some better results.
Andrelton Simmons snapped the scoreless streak with an opposite-field homer in the second inning, his second of the season. He didn't hit his second homer until September last year.
After the Astros took the lead on a pair of monstrous homers by Yuli Gurriel and George Springer in the third, the Angels went back ahead with their most productive inning in more than a week.
In fact, their four runs in the fifth were more runs than they had scored in any game during the six-game losing streak.
No. 9 hitter Martin Maldonado started it with a single, which was his third time on base in the game. Maldonado has gotten off the type of offensive start the Angels had hoped, with a .385 on-base percentage.
After a Yunel Escobar single and a Kole Calhoun strikeout, Mike Trout blistered a line drive that ticked off the glove of Springer diving in center. A run scored on the double.
Pujols then lofted a towering drive ball down the left-field line. The only question was whether it would be fair, and once it came down just inside the pole, the Angels had a 5-2 lead.
Staked to another lead, Ricky Nolasco blanked the Astros over the next two innings. Over his six innings, Nolasco did not allow a run besides the two homers. It was the fourth straight game in which an Angels starter allowed two runs or fewer, and three of them pitched at least six innings.
