Hitting Was Contagious in Anaheim
An 11-4 win over the Colorado Rockies on June 3 gave the Los Angeles Angels their most complete offensive night in some time, and Angels manager Kurt Suzuki framed it less as a single hot bat than as something that spread through the lineup. "Everybody had quality at-bats, hitting the ball hard," Suzuki said. "I feel like it was a momentum. The hitting was contagious. Guys kept having good at-bats and good at-bats."
The two players Suzuki named — Wade Meckler and Nick Madrigal — each went 4-for-5. Meckler, playing left field, doubled and scored twice; Madrigal, the Angels' second baseman, drove in a run. "Nicky and Meckler, 4 hits apiece," Suzuki said. "Those are fun nights, you know, fun nights you want to be a part of."
The night's biggest single swing, though, came from first baseman Vaughn Grissom, whose 408-foot two-run home run to left in the bottom of the fourth scored Meckler and pushed the Angels in front 8-1. Grissom finished with 3 RBIs — the most by any Angel in the game.
Using the Whole Field
For Suzuki, what made the night different was not the volume of contact but the kind of contact. He returned several times to the idea of working the whole field rather than chasing damage on pitches off the plate. "Quality at-bats in the sense of moving the ball forward, battling with two strikes and using the big part — not everybody's just trying to hook everything," he said.
"I feel like we use the whole field and almost just take what the pitchers give us — not trying to hook a slider for a homer down and away," Suzuki added. "It's like, take your base hits, move runners over, get runners in." That approach showed up in the box score: eight Angels recorded at least one hit, and the lineup added on in the sixth when shortstop Oswald Peraza doubled to left to score Meckler, then came around himself on a Madrigal single up the middle. Peraza finished 2-for-5 with 2 RBIs, the second-highest run-production night on the Angels' side.
Suzuki also pointed to the lineup mix itself. "It balances out the lineup a little bit — not righty-lefty, but more contact, move the ball around," he said. "I think it just added a little bit of a different vibe. It works great, and we feel good about what we're doing right now."
Ureña Sets the Tone
The other half of the formula was the work of starter Walbert Ureña, who turned in 6.0 innings against Colorado. Ureña allowed 3 runs on 3 hits with 3 walks and 7 strikeouts on 99 pitches, earning the win to move his season record to 3-4. The one mistake was a fifth-inning two-run home run by Tyler Freeman that traveled 387 feet to left-center; otherwise Ureña gave the Angels a starter's outing — the foundation Suzuki kept coming back to when he described the night as one where "everything kind of clicked."
"Having a night like tonight, where everything kind of clicked and everybody did their part," Suzuki said, "it's got that good feeling, right — that good feeling going into the next series."
From a Tough Tampa Trip to What's Next
The "good feeling" framing was deliberate, because the stretch leading into the Rockies series had not produced many. Suzuki acknowledged as much when reflecting on the previous games. "The last three games — and you know, included the last game in Tampa — I feel like it was tough, definitely was tough," he said.
That makes the timing of an offensive eruption useful as well as enjoyable. With the Los Angeles Dodgers on the schedule next, Suzuki's reading of the night — contagious hitting, a balanced lineup, a starter who handed off a lead, and a bullpen that covered the final three innings while allowing just one more run — is the kind of template a manager would prefer to carry into a higher-profile series.