After a day off and weekend of sweeping the Yankees, the Angels took the first game of a two-game set with the Mariners to move their win streak to five games.
Seattle put up three runs in the third but the Angels erased their lead in the fifth with four runs of their own off former Angel Jarrod Washburn. Juan Rivera led off the inning with a solo homerun before Jeff Mathis got on by an error and Chone Figgins singled. Erick Aybar bunted them over to scoring position and Teixeira batted in Mathis with a groundout RBI. Vlad then blasted a two-run go-ahead homerun, his 22nd of the year. The Angels added three more in the eighth. Torii Hunter walked and was driven home by Garret Anderson’s two-run shot, which extends his hit streak to 17 games. Howie Kendrick then singled and touched home on Rivera’s double.
Jon Garland gave up three in the third, but that was all as he sailed through seven innings to get his 11th win. Scott Shields held the eighth and Jose Arrendondo got two outs in the ninth before K-Rod got a strikeout for the last out and his 46th save.
It’ll take just one more win to get the short-series sweep of the Mariners. Santana takes the hill in search of his 14th win, he is 5-2 lifetime against the Mariners. He will face Felix Hernandez, who is 7-7 but his 2.94 ERA speaks louder, as he has 8 no decisions this year.
