May 27, 2016
Angels 7, Astros 2
W – Shoemaker (3-5)
L – Fiers (3-3)
When staying up for games on the west coast there’s almost always a point at which you have to decide if it’s worth staying up to watch the entire game. On Friday night the Astros at least had the decency to answer that question fairly early.
Still scoreless in the 3rd inning, Mike Fiers ran into big trouble as ten Angels batted in the inning and scored six runs, keyed by a Mike Trout bases-clearing double to left-center and a follow-up two-run shot by Pujols. The Halos tacked on another run in the 4th as Fiers really struggled with his command. Chris Devenski came in with two outs and the bases loaded in the 4th and got out of the jam, then pitched another four innings of scoreless ball.
Offensively the Astro bats were unable to mount a sustained attack against Matt Shoemaker until it was too late. Shoemaker scattered eight hits (all singles), pitched into the 9th, and struck out 11, but was chased from the game with two on and one out. The Astros did later load the bases and Colin Moran hit a bases-loaded two-run single in the top of the 9th off Cam Bedrosian, but that was all she wrote.