Jose Soriano reaches career high strikeouts in Angels victory Tuesday night

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Jose Soriano reached a career high of 12 strikeouts in an outing Tuesday night in the Angels 2-1 victory against the Athletics.

Soriano's previous career high was nine, earlier this season against the Guardians, when he threw nine strikeouts. He reached the ninth strikeout mark in six innings tonight.

"I feel great, amazing," Soriano said through an interpreter. "Especially because I had as many strikeouts in my career and everything was working well tonight. Thank God."

For the first 6 ⅔ innings tonight, Soriano went without giving up a hit. His no-hit bid came to a close when Brent Rooker hit a 108 MPH RBI double with one out in the inning, scoring Max Schuemann from first base. Schuemann reached first after drawing a walk to open the inning. It was the second walk given up by Soriano.

"I wasnt realized that until I got into the sixth inning. I saw I was throwing no no-hitter but I don't give many attention to that."

Throughout the first six innings tonight, Soriano had 10 strikeouts. His sinker was responsible for eight of them, while his knuckle curveball was at two. Soriano finished the night with one more strikeout from both pitches.

Between the fourth and fifth innings, that's where Soriano looked his best, striking out five batters in a row, three of those strikeouts were courtesy of his sinker ball.

Leading up through the first five innings, the Angels (32-35) had a total of three hits. Scoring with runners on base was a challenge for the Angels throughout the evening.

"He had everything working. And that sinker was ridiculous." Angels manager Ron Washington said.

Soriano finished the night giving up a total of two hits, the second hit was a double by Nick Kurtz to lead off the seventh inning. Out of 110 pitches thrown tonight, 71 of them were for strikes.

In the bottom half of the sixth, it was perhaps the best scoring opportunity for the Angels.

Zach Neto led things off with a double hit towards right field. In the next at bat, Nolan Schanuel drew a walk.

With zero outs and runners on second and first, the stage was set for Mike Trout.

Trout, unfortunately, hit a chopper towards third base, resulting in a double play, ruling himself and Neto out.

Taylor Ward was the next batter after Trout; he earned a walk. Jorge Soler, who'd been out since Saturday due to a groin injury, ended the inning by popping out behind second base, putting an end to any chance to tie the game when Soriano returned to the mound.

In the seventh inning, the Angels' lineup went down 1-2-3.

"We had some opportunities and it just went through the middle of our lineup tonight," Washington said. "Middle of our lineup would've did anything earlier in the game it might've been a different game. But hey that's baseball."

With all hope lost, Travis d'Arnaud came in to pinch-hit for Scott Kingery in the eighth inning. He needed to see just one pitch as he blasted a 398-foot homer to left field to tie the game at 1, saving Soriano's gem of a game from becoming a loss on the win-loss column.

Two batters later, Nolan Schanuel fired a single towards right field, giving the Angels a chance to take a late lead for the first time tonight. But Trout would pop out, and Ward struck out, killing any chance of a comeback in the eighth.

The Angels' pitching staff continued to dominate after Soriano exited the game as Hunter Strickland, Kenley Jansen, and Reid Detmers combined for two hits. Detmers has been one of the best pitchers out of the Angels' bullpen lately, and he retired the A's in order during the 10th inning.

In the bottom half of the 10th, Neto was walked after Adell was able to advance to third from a groundout by Kevin Newman. With runners on first and second, here came Schanuel.

"I had a pretty good idea that they were gonna walk Neto and was kind of looking over at the manager to see if he was gonna do it. And once he did it kind of flipped a switch," Schanuel said. "I went up there with the most confidence in the world."

Schanuel delivered a single towards center field, where the ball landed in front of Denzel Clarke, who robbed Schanuel of a homer the night before when he made one of the best catches this season. Schanuel's single was good enough to give the Angels a walk-off victory, it was also the first of his career.

"It was electric. I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight," Schanuel said. "Adrenaline was pumping through my veins. Once I saw it fall and running around the bases was super excited. I don't know if I ever felt anything like this before."