The Los Angeles Angels are hoping for a bounce-back effort from staff ace Jose Soriano as they try to earn a split of their four-game series with the Athletics on Thursday in Anaheim, Calif.<\/p>\n
Soriano (6-3, 2.41 ERA) was the American League Pitcher of the Month for March\/April after allowing only one earned run in 37 2\/3 innings over his first six starts (0.24 ERA) while striking out 43 batters. But talk about a possible Cy Young Award has quieted down a little after he has lost three of his past four starts, allowing 15 earned runs in 22 innings.<\/p>\n
Soriano comes in off his worst start of the season, a 15-2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers last Saturday. He allowed a season-high six runs in 5 1\/3 innings despite yielding just one hit, a single to Freddie Freeman.<\/p>\n
Soriano walked a career-high six batters, including four in a five-run sixth inning that also saw him hit a batter. He left after throwing 92 pitches, just 48 that were strikes.<\/p>\n
“Everything was good up until that moment, but then I struggled with command,” Soriano said. “A lot of walks. It is what it is. There’s nothing we can do about it. Just try and be ready for the next time.”<\/p>\n
Soriano is 1-3 with a 9.00 ERA in eight appearances (six starts) in his career against the A’s. He was pounded for eight earned runs on five hits and five walks over 2 1\/3 innings in his most recent start against the Athletics that came last Sept. 5 in Anaheim.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles has lost eight of its past nine games and is just 6-23 in last 29 contests.<\/p>\n
For the A’s, right-hander Luis Severino (2-5, 4.45) will get the nod on Thursday. He is 0-1 with a 3.38 ERA in seven career starts against the Angels.<\/p>\n
Soriano will try to snap a personal three-start losing streak for the Athletics.<\/p>\n
As with Soriano, May has not been a kind month for Severino, who is 0-3 with a 4.41 ERA in three starts. He comes in off a 6-4 loss to the San Francisco Giants on Saturday that saw him give up five runs on a season-high 10 hits — including a pair of home runs to Casey Schmitt — over six innings while striking out seven.<\/p>\n
“Obviously, Schmitt was an issue,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. “But I thought Sevy’s outing was a couple pitches away from being really good.”<\/p>\n
The good news for the Athletics is the game is on the road, where Severino has excelled in an A’s uniform. Severino is 6-2 with a 3.02 ERA in 14 career road starts with the Athletics compared to 3-11 with a 5.91 ERA in 19 career starts at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, Calif.<\/p>\n
The A’s will be going for their third straight victory after rallying for a 6-5 win in 10 innings on Wednesday. Jeff McNeil led off the ninth with a home run off Kirby Yates to tie it, 5-5, and Tyler Soderstrom recorded his third RBI of the game after driving in Nick Kurtz with the winning run in the 10th.<\/p>\n
Kurtz extended his on-base streak to 43 games with a single and two walks. He also scored two runs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Angels are hoping for a bounce-back effort from staff ace Jose Soriano as they try…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-327644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}