Joe Saunders bounces back from lone loss to help Angels down Dodgers 4-2
By KEN PETERS | Associated Press | May 17, 08 12:23 AM CDT in
Sports
Joe Saunders bounced back from his lone loss of the year and Vladimir Guerrero drove in two runs without a hit to help the Los Angeles Angels beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-2 Friday night.
Joe Torre, who had a losing record against the Angels during his tenure as manager of the New York Yankees, lost again in his first matchup with them as Dodgers manager.
The Angels went 61-55 against New York during Torre's reign from 1996-2007, the only AL team with a winning record against the Yankees in that span, and eliminated them from the playoffs in 2002 and 2005.
Saunders (7-1) held the Dodgers to two runs _ on Andre Ethier's two-run homer in the seventh _ in 7 1-3 innings. The left-hander gave up five hits, walked two and had one strikeout.
He was coming off an outing in which he got no offensive support, a 2-0 defeat at Tampa Bay when he allowed just one run and four hits in six innings.
Francisco Rodriguez pitched a perfect ninth for his major league-leading 17th save in 18 chances.
The Dodgers' Hiroki Kuroda (1-3) allowed four runs, three earned, on seven hits and two walks in 6 1-3 innings. He struck out five.
After Ethier hit his fourth homer of the season to trim the deficit to 3-2 in the seventh, the Angels answered with a run in the bottom half.
Guerrero, who provided the Angels' second run of the game with a sacrifice fly in the fifth, drove in their fourth with a grounder to third. Maicer Izturis, who had walked and advanced to third on two wild pitches by Kuroda, slid into the plate safely when third baseman Russell Martin fielded Guerrero's grounder and bounced his throw to the plate.
The play was ruled a fielder's choice, no error involved, and Guerrero was credited with the RBI.
The Angels took a 3-0 lead with a pair of runs in the fifth, on Guerrero's sacrifice fly and Garret Anderson's RBI single.
The Angels scored their first run on a fluke play in the fourth inning, starting after Casey Kotchman hit a ground-rule double down the left-field line with two outs. Kuroda then struck out Erick Aybar, but catcher Gary Bennett couldn't cleanly handle the third strike that was in the dirt, and his throw to first sailed over first baseman James Loney's head for an error.
Kotchman scored on the play, and Aybar wound up on third base.
A couple of fine fielding plays by the Dodgers kept the Angels from opening a bigger lead.
Left fielder Juan Pierre sprinted back and toward the fence in left-center to snare a drive by Guerrero that likely would have scored a run in the first inning. After Aybar reached third on Bennett's error in the fourth, Martin, the Dodgers' catcher who was filling in at third base, dived to his left to grab Robb Quinlan's hard grounder and throw him out to limit the damage in that inning to one run.
Martin started at third for the second game in a row in place of Blake DeWitt, out with a sore lower back. That gave Bennett his second consecutive start behind the plate.
Notes:@ The Dodgers have won only four times in their last 28 interleague games on the road, including losing nine of the last 10 in Anaheim. ... The Angels went 14-4 in interleague play last season to tie Detroit for the best record in baseball. Included in the Angels' mark was a 5-1 record against the Dodgers. ... Angels INF Chone Figgins, who has missed the last 12 games with a strained right hamstring, is eligible to come off the 15-day disabled list Tuesday when the Angels open a road trip in Toronto. Manager Mike Scioscia said there's still no timetable for 2B Howie Kendrick (strained left hamstring) to return to the lineup.
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