It didn’t take long for the Angels’ bats to come roaring back to life Saturday. And neither did Tyler Anderson.
After putting up one run in their previous 27 innings, LA collected 12 hits and scored in each of the first five innings. But it was Anderson’s eight scoreless innings that cemented the Angels' 7-0 victory over the Cubs and snapped a streak of five consecutive losses.
The Angels’ left-hander retired 24 of the 26 batters he faced after surrendering a leadoff single to Nico Hoerner in the bottom of the first inning. He allowed three hits and struck out 10, his most since October 2022 and tying a career high.
The performance dropped Anderson’s ERA from 3.03 to 2.81. He’s 8-8 in 18 starts, and come Sunday, it may just be enough to secure him his second career all-star selection.
“He’s our all-star,” Angels manager Ron Washington said. “He’s been the guy that’s been doing a good job for us on the mound consistently.
"Even his games when he wasn’t very good, he kept us in them.”
Washington praised Anderson’s aggressiveness and ability to change speeds effectively, nothing his 13 first-pitch strikes as a major key to his success.
“I feel like if I’m ahead in the count, I feel like can throw whatever I want,” Anderson said. “You have a lot more options than when you’re behind, it seems like.
"I’ve been falling behind a lot the last couple starts, so that was a big thing for me today.”
It was about as good of a bounce-back outing as the 34-year-old could have hoped for following his six earned run, 4 2/3-inning performance in his last start. He credited a pre-game speech from teammate Kevin Pillar, who reflected on 10 years of major league service, for helping him re-focus his mindset before Saturday’s start.
While the Chicago was unable to crack the code on Anderson, the Angels had no problem jumping on Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks, who left the game with lower back tightness after giving up four hits, two walks and two earned runs in two innings.
Two costly fielding errors — a pair of bad throws to second base — in the third inning allowed Los Angeles to score three more runs. Then, right fielder Jo Adell put the exclamation point on the team’s offensive revival with a solo home run to deep left center in the fifth.
Like Anderson, Adell cited Pillar’s veteran leadership as the secret to his successful at-bat. Adell said he and Pillar had a “heart-to-heart” about his approach at the plate before he went up and hit his 14th homer of the season.
“It was just kind of a cool moment,” Adell said. “To take a little bit of his experience and his advice and be able to go and produce.”
All nine Angels batters recorded a hit Saturday, including second baseman Keston Hiura. He was playing his second game since being called up from Triple-A Salt Lake went 2 for 5 with an RBI single.
Ten of the Angels’ 12 hits were singles, a sign that they were able to put the ball in play in more creative ways than just hitting for power.
“I think we just strung some hits together,” Washington said. “We got a lot of weak contact, but they ended up falling in.
"It seemed when we did put the barrel on the ball, it made plays. We were smart today, got a lot of weak contact that was out of the reach of everyone.”
The series concludes at 11:20 a.m. Sunday, when hard-throwing right-hander Jose Soriano (4-6, 3.77 ERA) faces Cubs right-hander Hayden Wesneski (2-5, 4.34).