Angels hang on in wild ride to defeat the Astros 8-7

The Angels turned it on early in this game thanks to Mike Trout’s major league leading 10th home run that he launched on the first pitch of the game that he saw. Not only does that lead the majors, but Trout became the first Angel EVER to hit 10 home runs in the month of Aprils. Trout breaks records. It’s what he does.

Shohei Ohtani took the mound and looked pretty good. Correction - he looked A LOT better than he did against the Red Sox but still overthrew his splitter at times. No matter, he worked it, and racked up 7 Ks over 5.1 innings, hitting 100.6 MPH on his fastball in the process. Ohtani became the 3rd pitcher (and first starter) to throw a pitch that hard this season (along with Aroldis Chapman and Jordan Hicks).

Not to be outdone by Trout, Andrelton Simmons smashed his own followup home run in the 2nd inning, putting the Angels briefly ahead 2-0 until the Astros got on the board in the bottom of the inning. The Angels tacked on 2 more runs in the 3 inning.

Astros starter Charlie Morton would go on to last only 4 innings after giving up 5 walks 2 home runs, and allowed the Angels a 3 run lead.

Queue the 5th inning with home plate umpire Eric Cooper made an absolute TERRIBLE call that ended up costing the Ohtani a run. I’m no umpire making 300K per year, but pitch #6 below sure as heck looks like a strike. Instead of strike 3? It was ball 4. Follow up that AB with a home run and Cooper gave that extra run to the Astros. As if they needed any help.

The Astros would score 2 more runs in the 6th thanks to Jose Alvarez who picked a fine time to give up his first home run of the season.

But the Angels weren’t out yet and they piled on the runs off old friend Joe Smith thanks to a Pujols single (that should have been scored a double), and a ANOTHER Simmons home run - this time a 3 run shot. Simmons ended up going 3 for 5 with 5 RBIs and had himself a night.

Sadly, the Astros weren’t done either, scoring 2 runs in the 7th to make it a 1 run game and leaving the bases loaded thanks to a Justin Anderson K and THIS play by Zach Cozart:

Noe Ramirez and Cam Bedrosian combined for the final 2 innings in this game, shutting down the Astros, shutting down their hopes of a comeback, and sealing a series victory against last year’s World Series champs.

Another sweet, sweet victory in Houston!