Greinke, Kendrick help Dodgers beat Angels

Send a link to a friend  Share

[August 01, 2015]  LOS ANGELES -- All-Star right-hander Zack Greinke resumed his bid to be considered the best pitcher in baseball Friday night.

Second baseman Howie Kendrick homered against his ex-mates and Greinke delivered another solid performance, leading the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 5-3 victory over the Los Angeles Angels before a sellout crowd of 53,380 at Dodger Stadium.

Greinke started instead of Clayton Kershaw, who rested his sore hip for an extra day. Grienke allowed two runs on five hits with eight strikeouts and a walk in eight innings. Only right fielder Kole Calhoun (three) and center fielder Mike Trout (two) recorded hits off Greinke.

"Stuff was pretty sharp," said Greinke, who has won five consecutive starts and is 5-0 with an 0.31 ERA in his last eight outings. Greinke continues to carry the major leagues' lowest ERA at 1.41.

"Pretty good slider. Just one hit. (Mike) Trout got a hit off a good one, so that was impressive. But I had a couple of mistakes to those guys. Calhoun's first two hits were bad pitches and same thing with Trout."

Trout, who went 3-for-4, drove in all three Angels runs and was a double shy of the cycle, smacked his 32nd home run in the ninth off Kenley Jansen before the closer earned his 18th save despite giving up a run and hitting a batter.

Greinke (10-2), who had his streak of 45 2/3 scoreless innings snapped Sunday against the New York Mets, allowed two earned runs at Dodger Stadium for first time since April 29 against the San Francisco Giants.

Kershaw (8-6, 2.51 ERA) is scheduled to return Saturday, when he will face Angels left-hander Andrew Heaney (5-0, 1.79 ERA), who the Dodgers dealt for Kendrick during the off-season.

Third baseman Alex Guerrero also went deep -- his 11th home run this season -- for the Dodgers (58-45), who defeated the Angels (55-47) for the fourth straight time. The Angels have dropped their last four games overall and seven of their past eight.

Despite the setbacks, Dodger manager Don Mattingly said the Angels remain one of the best teams in baseball.

"That's a dangerous club," Mattingly said. "I think the biggest key is to try to keep guys off base."

"We've had a tough week," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "We haven't put together a lot of parts of the game. When we've scored runs, we haven't pitched. When we've pitched, we haven't scored runs. It's just a tough streak right now."

Angels starter Hector Santiago had a rough outing, surrendering five runs on a season-high nine hits with three strikeouts and a walk in five-plus innings. Santiago (7-5) also hit a batter.

[to top of second column]

"I thought Hector was a little indecisive," Scioscia said. "It looked like he was searching not only trying to find his release point, to execute pitches and repeat his delivery, which he has been doing very well this year, (but) searching to put together his game plan. He had a lot of trouble putting pitches together. He just wasn't quite as crisp as we've seen him, and we paid a price for it."

Kendrick parked a 1-0 off-speed pitch from Santiago into the seats in center for his eighth home run of the season in his first at-bat against his former club in the first inning. Kendrick was unavailable for comment after the game.

Trout's RBI triple brought home Calhoun, who reached on a single, to tie the score at 1-1 in the fourth.

"The triple was a bad pitch," said Greinke, who went 6-2 for the Angels in 13 games after being traded by the Milwaukee Brewers during the 2012 season. He is only 2-5 in 11 games (10 starts) against the Angels.

In the bottom of the inning, Guerrero followed catcher Yasmani Grandal's infield single with a two-run homer to left for a 3-1 Dodgers advantage.

The Dodgers added two runs in the fifth on RBI singles by right fielder Yasiel Puig and Grandal for a 5-1 cushion.

NOTES: The Dodgers activated LHP Alex Wood, RHP Jim Johnson and LHP Luis Avilan, optioned RHP Mike Bolsinger, Zach Lee and Chin-hui Tsao to Triple-A Oklahoma City and traded 1B Michael Morse and cash to the Pittsburgh Pirates for OF Jose Tabata. The club also placed 3B Justin Turner on the 15-day disabled list with a right thigh skin infection. ... The Angels put LHP C.J. Wilson on the 15-day disabled list (retroactive to July 29) with left elbow inflammation. The team also optioned INF/OF Efren Navarro to the Triple-A Salt Lake Bees and recalled RHP Drew Rucinski from the Bees.

[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Back to top