After slamming four home runs in their best offensive output in nearly a month while winning Friday’s series opener with Texas, the Los Angeles Angels will try to win back-to-back games for the first time since early May when they face the Rangers on Saturday night.
It won’t be easy for the Angels.
Veteran right-hander Nathan Eovaldi (5-4, 3.62 ERA), who has allowed just one run over 22 innings while winning his last three starts, will take the mound Saturday for the Rangers and will oppose hard-throwing rookie right-hander Walbert Urena (1-4, 2.70).
Eovaldi is 7-3 with a 3.04 ERA in 16 career appearances (14 starts) against Los Angeles, including 2-0 with an 0.69 ERA in two starts last season, when he allowed 11 hits and one earned run over 13 innings.
Eovaldi, 36, comes in on a roll. Despite being scratched from a scheduled start against Arizona on May 11 with left side tightness, he bounced back to throw seven shutout innings in a 8-0 victory over Houston on Sunday. He allowed five hits, walked two and struck out eight while producing 19 swings-and-misses, including 13 with his splitter.
“I felt good,” Eovaldi said. “I thought I had a good game plan coming in. The curveball was good, the splitter was really good, and the sinker as well. It was just trying to attack the zone, not fall behind a lot of guys.”
Eovaldi will try to slow a Los Angeles offense that scored six runs, including two homers, in just three innings against two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom in Friday’s opener. The Angels scored nine runs in a game for the first time since April 26 in an 11-9, 10-inning loss at Kansas City.
Shortstop Zach Neto hit two home runs on Friday, including one on deGrom’s first pitch, and left fielder Wade Meckler hit his first major league homer later in the first, a 403-foot, three-run blast into the right-field bleachers.
It was Neto’s 12th career leadoff homer, tied with Darin Erstad for second-most in team history. Brian Downing holds the team record of 19.
“Neto leading that inning off with a homer and then Meckler coming in with the three-run (homer) really set the tone for the game,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said.
It was a storybook night for Anaheim native Meckler, who attended the city’s Esperanza High School before walking on at Oregon State, where he earned first-team All-Pac 12 honors.
An eighth-round draft pick of the San Francisco Giants in 2022, Meckler grew up attending games at Anaheim Stadium and idolizing Mike Trout, who started in center field next to him in Meckler’s first Angels start on Friday.
Meckler made a highlight-reel, backhanded catch in the top of the first on a Brandon Nimmo liner while sliding into the wall in foul territory. Then in his first at-bat with the Angels, he clubbed his first major league homer, off deGrom, while his parents watched from the stands.
“Pretty surreal moment,” said Meckler, 26. “I grew up coming to games here. Probably have been to 50 or 60 games growing up. It’s cool to do that in your first at-bat here.”
Meckler had played in 20 big-league games with the Giants in 2023, batting .232 in 56 at-bats.
The Angels, 7-24 over their last 31 games, will turn to Urena to try and win back-to-back games for the first time since May 5-6 against the White Sox.
It will be his first career appearance against Texas and seventh career start. Urena has a 1.64 ERA over his last four starts and allowed just four hits over six shutout innings Monday in his most recent outing, a 2-1 Angels win over the Athletics.
–Field Level Media
