ANAHEIM, Calif. _ Brad Ausmus showed the ultimate sign of trust in a young pitcher Sunday, the Los Angeles Angels manager letting Griffin Canning go a third time through the Chicago White Sox order. The rookie right-hander was more than worthy in a 9-2 victory before 35,436 in Angel Stadium.
Canning, relying heavily on a fastball that touched 95 mph and a sharp-breaking slider that touched 91 mph, allowed one run and five hits in seven innings, striking out eight and walking one, to improve to 5-6 with a 4.58 ERA.
He threw 101 pitches, one shy of his career high, 63 for strikes. Canning induced 19 swinging strikes, seven with his slider, five with his fastball and five with a curve that he threw 13 times.
Fellow rookie Matt Thaiss backed Canning with three hits, including a three-run homer in the second and an RBI double in the sixth, and Kole Calhoun (solo shot in the fourth), Shohei Ohtani (two-run shot in the seventh) and Anthony Bemboom (two-run shot in the eighth) added homers.
The Angels rarely leave their starting pitchers in the game long enough to go a third time through the order, but Canning threw only 62 pitches through five innings, and his stuff was sharp. He allowed three singles and struck out three of the eight batters he faced for a third time.
Canning, a second-round pick out of UCLA in 2017, did not allow a hit through 3 2/3 innings, and he was one out away from a clean fourth when he hit cleanup batter James McCann with a full-count pitch.
Eloy Jimenez followed with a high fly ball to deep center field that Brian Goodwin, starting in place of Mike Trout, lost in the sun. The ball bounced on the warning track for a run-scoring triple that cut the Angels' lead to 3-1.
Calhoun got that run back in the bottom of the inning when he led off with his career-high 27th homer of the season to center field, topping the 26 homers he hit in 2015 and extending the Angels' lead to 4-1.
Calhoun also sparked a three-run second with a one-out double to left-center off White Sox starter Dylan Cease, a hard-throwing right-hander who made his eighth career start after entering the season as the organization's top prospect.
Luis Rengifo was hit by a pitch to put two on, and Thaiss followed with a towering drive that cleared the right-field wall for a three-run homer, the corner infielder's sixth homer of the season.
Chicago threatened in the sixth when John Jay singled and McCann hit a two-out bloop single that kicked away from Goodwin as he attempted to make a sliding catch in shallow center.
Jay was waved around third, but Goodwin retrieved the ball and fired a strong one-hop throw to Bemboom, who tagged out Jay to end the inning.
The Angels tacked on an insurance run in the sixth when Rengifo led off with a double and Thaiss hit an RBI double off left-handed reliever Ross Detwiler for a 5-1 lead.
David Fletcher walked to open the seventh and Ohtani, who had hit only one homer in 32 games since the All-Star break, drove a 431-foot homer to center _ his 16th of the season _ for a 7-1 lead. Bemboom's two-run homer to right, his first as an Angel, made it 9-1 in the eighth.
