Brent Rooker homered and drove in three runs Tuesday night, and the Athletics rolled past the Los Angeles Angels 14-6 in Anaheim, Calif. Zack Gelof also went deep and drove in three runs as the Athletics snapped a three-game skid.
The Athletics scored 12 of their runs with two outs and finished with 15 hits, turning a tight night into a runaway after building a six-run third inning and then adding a two-run sixth and a four-run eighth. Rooker’s two-run shot in the eighth helped put the game out of reach, while Gelof’s solo homer in the seventh kept the pressure on the Angels.
Nick Kurtz added three hits and five RBI for the Athletics, who are listed as the AL West leaders in the source. Justin Sterner earned the win after escaping a first-and-third, two-out jam in the fourth inning, a sequence that kept the Angels from seizing momentum before the game got away from them.
That mattered because the Angels entered the night as the last-place team and had lost 22 of their previous 28 games since an 11-10 start. Mike Trout hit his 12th homer of the season and finished with two RBI, but Reid Detmers was tagged for eight runs and eight hits in 5 2/3 innings as Los Angeles fell behind early and never recovered.
The matchup also extended a rough stretch for the Angels and showed how quickly the Athletics can change a game when their bats start stacking innings with traffic. Aaron Civale was scheduled to start for the Athletics against Angels right-hander Jack Kochanowicz on Wednesday night.
