MINNEAPOLIS — For a split second, it looked like it was going to happen to the Angels again. A ninth-inning lead was about to disappear with a line drive into the right field corner.
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Then first baseman Nolan Schanuel got all the air he could with his 6-foot-3 frame and his outstretched glove, and he snagged the final out of the Angels’ 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Friday night.
Schanuel said he had an idea that Twins left-handed hitter Kody Clemens liked to pull the ball, so he was “extra ready.”
“I just anticipated the ball and saw it really well and got up there,” Schanuel said, adding that it was “awesome” and “a big sense of relief.”
The Angels (38-57) have come up on the wrong end of those type of moments often this year, with seven losses in games that they led after eight innings. Just the night before, they lost when they gave up a run in a tie game in the bottom of the ninth. Kirby Yates was on the mound for the loss on Thursday, and he got the save on Friday, thanks to Schanuel’s catch.
Yates had allowed a one-out double, but the runner was still at second when Schanuel made the final out of the game, preserving a victory for Angels starter Grayson Rodriguez in his return to the rotation after three weeks on the injured list.
Rodriguez was in control for most of his 5⅓-inning outing. He was charged with three runs, but two of them scored after he was out of the game.
“He pitched well,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said. “His changeup was working today. It was working really good. Had some life on his fastball. He was was throwing strikes, attacking the zone. Good first start for sure.”
In the first inning, Rodriguez looked shaky. He gave up a run and the Twins hit four balls at 100 mph or harder. They whiffed at only one of his pitches.
“I guess, too middle with the stuff,” Rodriguez said. “Made the adjustment in the second inning. I felt like I was able to do that. Kind of change the sights a little bit and make them put it in play.”
After that, though, Rodriguez still wasn’t getting many swings and misses, but he was keeping the hitters off balance enough that they weren’t hitting the ball hard either.
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He was cruising until the fifth, when he began to feel cramping in his legs. That caused a slight dip in his velocity. He gave up two hits – including an infield hit – and then came out of the game.
Rodriguez said it was just a matter of being dehydrated on a humid 85-degree night.
“I was hammering the bananas,” Rodriguez said. “Drinking a lot of fluids. I guess it wasn’t enough.”
Both of the runners he left on base scored against Samy Natera Jr, cutting the Angels’ lead to 4-3. Natera escaped that inning and then got into and out of his own jam in the seventh. He recorded the last two outs with runners at second and third.
Right-hander Sam Bachman, pitching for the third time in four days, worked around a walk in the eighth, setting the stage for Yates to get a chance to atone for the loss he took on Thursday night.
He could have used a bigger cushion, but the offense went quiet after a burst in the fourth and fifth innings.
Vaughn Grissom homered, his fifth of the season, to get the Angels on the board in the fourth inning. Jorge Soler then doubled, went to third on a ground ball and scored on a balk, giving the Angels a 2-1 lead.
They scored two more in the fifth on a textbook inning of putting the ball in play. They loaded the bases on two opposite-field hits sandwiched around a perfect bunt single.
Schanuel, fresh off of his four-hit game, then singled to drive in one. Grissom followed with a sacrifice fly to give the Angels a 4-1 lead.
“I thought we we put together some good at-bats,” Suzuki said. “Hit the ball hard. Obviously Grissom hit the big home run. Georgie had the double. I think the biggest play was (Tyler Heineman’s) bunt that went for a hit. That kind of created that rally right there. We put up a couple more, so I think that was huge.”
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