Jared Walsh slams door on Angels home schedule

Jared Walsh continued his September to remember, hitting a grand slam in a seven-run fourth inning in the Angels’ 8-5 win over the Rangers on Monday afternoon in Anaheim, closing out the home portion of the 2020 schedule.

The grand slam extended Walsh’s hitting streak to 13 games, during which he’s hitting .396 with 10 extra-base hits. It was the eighth home run for Walsh in September, two shy of the Angels rookie record for a month, held by Wally Joyner (May 1986) and Mike Trout (July 2012).

Walsh this month is hitting .375/.394/.844 with 23 runs batted in, and five more games to try to match or beat Garret Anderson’s club record for a rookie, driving in 31 runs in July 1995.

On the season Walsh is hitting .312/.333/.701 in 27 games. Among the 399 major league hitters with at least 50 plate appearances in 2020, Walsh’s 170 wRC+ ranks ninth.

Home bodies

All that run support made a winner out of Dylan Bundy, who allowed single runs in each of the first three frames but lasted through five innings for his sixth win of the season. Bundy’s three strikeouts on Monday gave him 37 at home this season, beating Andrew Heaney for most on the team in Anaheim this season.

The Angels finished 16-15 in games at Angel Stadium this season, including 15-15 as the home team and 1-0 as the road team, the latter a September 5 make-up game with the Astros, relocated by Hurricane Laura.

The Angels hit 50 home runs and allowed 50 in 31 games in Anaheim this season, an average of 3.23 between both teams per game. In Angels games on the road, there have been 48 homers in 24 games, exactly two per game.

Anthony Rendon has the most extreme splits on the team, with all nine home runs hit at Angel Stadium, and 18 of his 20 extra-base hits hit in his home park in 2020. He’s hitting .278/.422/.620 in Anaheim, and .275/.398/.304 on the road, with five games remaining this week to add to the latter.

Trout hit .344/.436/.750 at Angel Stadium in 2020, leading the team at home in home runs (10), RBI (26), runs scored (25), hits (33), and total bases (72).

Mike Mayers retired all six batters he faced, including three strikeouts, for the save. In 11 relief appearances in Anaheim this season Mayers did not allow a run, allowing only three singles and two walks in 15⅓ innings, with 21 strikeouts

Monday particulars

Home runs: Jared Walsh (8); Isiah Kiner-Falefa (3), Derek Dietrich (5)

WP — Dylan Bundy (6-3): 5 IP, 5 hits, 3 runs, 2 walks, 3 strikeouts

LP — Kyle Gibson (2-6): 4 IP, 5 hit, 8 runs (7 earned), 4 walks, 4 strikeouts

Sv — Mike Mayers (1): 2 IP, 3 strikeouts

Up next

The Angels head to San Diego for a quick two-gamer against the postseason-bound Padres. Griffin Canning starts the series opener on Tuesday night (6:10 p.m., Fox Sports West), facing Zach Davies for the Padres.