Dylan Bundy racked up a season-high 12 strikeouts in a superb 7 1/3-inning effort Thursday to lead the Angels to a 6-2 victory over the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. The Angels (18-27) moved to within four games of the slumping Houston Astros for a playoff spot with 15 games remaining.
Bundy allowed two earned runs and four hits and walked one to improve to 5-2 with a 2.48 ERA in nine starts. Of his 105 pitches, 78 were strikes. It marked the third time this season that Bundy recorded 10 or more strikeouts after reaching that mark only five times in the first 127 games of his career. His career-high for strikeouts is 14.
Jared Walsh and Mike Trout each homered, Taylor Ward had a career-high three hits, and Anthony Rendon walked, singled, doubled and scored twice to help the Angels snap a two-game losing streak and notch their first win in six games at Texas this season.
Walsh followed Trout's two-out single and Rendon's walk in the first with a three-run homer, driving a 2-and-1 changeup from Kyle Gibson 425 feet to right for a 3-0 lead.
Texas got one run back in the bottom of the first when leadoff man Leody Taveras tripled to right and scored on Rougned Odor's groundout to first, but Bundy retired 18 of the next 20 batters, 11 by strikeout, through the seventh. His only blemishes were leadoff singles to Anderson Tejada in the third and Isiah Kiner-Falefa in the seventh.
Trout extended the Angels' lead to 4-1 in the fifth when he blasted his major league-leading 16th homer, a two-out shot that traveled 449 feet into the second deck in left. It was Trout's 38th career homer against Texas, the sixth-most all-time among Rangers opponents. Reggie Jackson's 54 homers against Texas are the most.
The Angels pushed the lead to 5-1 in the sixth when Ward singled to right and scored on Andrelton Simmons' two-out double to left-center. Rendon doubled to left to lead off the seventh, took third in a wild pitch and scored on Max Stassi's sacrifice fly to center for a 6-1 lead.
Bundy walked Derek Dietrich to open the eighth, and Tejada ripped an RBI triple to the gap in right-center to pull the Rangers to within 6-2. Bundy struck out Jeff Mathis on a slider before giving way to Mike Mayers, who prevented further damage by striking out Taveras and getting Odor to fly to left.
Bundy effectively mixed his 91-mph fastball with his 80-mph slider, 82-mph changeup and 74-mph curve. He got 10 swings-and-misses on the 42 fastballs he threw, seven swings-and-misses on 23 sliders and four swings-and-misses on 23 changeups. He induced nine groundouts, one pop fly and no fly-ball outs.
