ANAHEIM — In the penultimate home game of a miserable season, the Angels gave the Fan Appreciation Night crowd something to celebrate.
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Down by three runs in the eighth inning, the Angels scored the winning run on Christian Moore’s infield hit to beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-5, in 11 innings on Saturday night.
The Angels scored two in the eighth on an Adam Frazier pinch-hit double, and then Vaughn Grissom tied the game in the ninth with a one-out homer.
In the 11th, the Angels had the bases loaded with two outs. Moore, who had just entered the game in the previous inning, swung at the first pitch he saw and hit a bouncer that deflected off the back of the leg of pitcher Taylor Rogers. It rolled too far from Rogers for him to have a play, and the Angels celebrated the walk-off victory.
The Angels were able to get to the game to the 11th because right fielder Josh Lowe threw out a runner at the plate in the top of the 10th. With one out, Ben Ross had tried to tag up on a fly ball to shallow right field, and Lowe threw him out to retire the side.
Left-hander Tayler Saucedo retired all three hitters he faced in the top of the 11th, setting up the Angels for the winning rally.
The Angels (60-95), who need three more victories in their final seven games to avoid the first 100-loss season in franchise history, spent most of the night wasting opportunities.
They were hitless in their first nine at-bats with runners in scoring position, including eight trips to the plate with two runners on base.
In the eighth, Denzer Guzman led off with a walk and then Lowe doubled. An out later, Frazier pulled a double down the right field line, scoring two. A Zach Neto walk brought Mike Trout to the plate with the tying and go-ahead runs on base, but Trout grounded into a double play.
Grissom’s 12th homer of the year tied the game, which spared starter Reid Detmers a loss.
Detmers recorded his 200th strikeout of the season, but saw his streak of seven straight quality starts come to an end.
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Detmers gave up four runs in five innings. Detmers had not allowed more than three runs in any of his previous 11 starts since the All-Star break.
When he struck out Austin Martin in the first inning, though, he reached a milestone that no Angels pitcher had reached since Shohei Ohtani in 2022. No Angels lefty had done it since Chuck Finley in 1999.
After he retired six of seven hitters in the first two innings, Detmers started giving up hits.
In the third, he gave up two runs on two hits. An inning later, he gave up another run on two more hits.
And in the fifth — just after a José Siri two-run homer brought the Angels within a run — Detmers gave up a first-pitch homer to No. 9 hitter Ryan Kreidler.
Kreidler hit a 92 mph fastball, which was a couple ticks slower than his normal velocity.
Detmers got through his 179th inning of the year, and then his night was over after five. He is scheduled for one more start, next weekend in Seattle. He’ll have a chance to become the Angels’ first pitcher to reach 180 innings since Andrew Heaney in 2018.
The Angels did little to support him, though.
They were hitless with runners in scoring position for the first seven innings of the game, including Grissom stranding six runners in his first three trips to the plate.
Moisés Ballesteros, who had been one of the hottest hitters on the team this month, also left four runners on in his first three trips.
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More to come on this story.