Jo Adell drove in an early run and collected two hits, while José Soriano pitched six effective innings to lead the Los Angeles Angels to a 2-1 win over the Seattle Mariners on Saturday night.
The Angels used four pitchers to shut down Seattle for the final eight innings, with Carlos Estévez closing out the game with his 17th save. Los Angeles has held the Mariners, who are currently in first place, to just one earned run over the last 16 innings of this series, winning both games in the process.
“Pitching, defense, timely hitting,” said Angels manager Ron Washington. “That’s what it was. We played a solid game.”
Soriano (5-7) allowed only one run despite giving up five hits, issuing four walks, and hitting two batters with wayward pitches. In his third start back from a back injury, he struck out five batters and managed to strand eight Mariners runners by getting Luke Raley out three times in crucial situations.
“I was aggressive in the strike zone,” Soriano commented through an interpreter. “I executed my pitches. There were some rough spots, but I worked through them.”
Julio Rodríguez drove in Seattle’s lone run with an RBI single in the first inning. The Mariners have now dropped two consecutive games after winning the first three games of their Southern California road trip.
George Kirby (7-7) pitched well for Seattle, allowing just three hits and one earned run over six innings while striking out seven.
“They threw some tough pitching against us tonight,” Mariners manager Scott Servais acknowledged. “We made an error in the field, which isn’t typical for us, and we couldn’t recover. We had opportunities against Soriano, but we needed a key hit and didn’t get it. It was uncharacteristic for us.”
Seattle took an early lead with J.P. Crawford drawing an 11-pitch walk to start the game and scoring on singles by Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez in the first inning. Despite having two runners on base, Luke Raley grounded into a double play to end the threat.
