High-flying Angels extend winning streak with four-game sweep of Guardians

The Angels extended their win streak to five games with a 4-1 victory over the Cleveland Guardians before a crowd of 18,826 in Angel Stadium on Thursday.

Left-hander Reid Detmers gave up one run and two hits in five innings, striking out four and walking one, and the bullpen added four shutout innings to cap the Angels’ first four-game sweep of Cleveland since July 28-30, 1997, in Cleveland, and first four-game sweep of Cleveland at home since May 13-16, 1982.

The win, which completed a 5-2 homestand, pushed the Angels (13-7) six games over .500 for the first time since June 22, 2018.

The Angels were gifted three runs in the third inning, which began with Guardians right-hander Cal Quantrill, the son of former big league reliever Paul Quantrill, walking .192-hitting catcher Kurt Suzuki. Tyler Wade hit a grounder to the mound but Quantrill’s throw to second sailed into center field for an error.

Andrew Velazquez dropped a sacrifice bunt between the mound and third base but Cleveland second baseman Owen Miller dropped Quantrill’s low-but-catchable throw for an error at first base, allowing the Angels to load the bases with no outs.

Taylor Ward got jammed by a 93-mph sinker but got enough of the 0-and-1 pitch to bloop an RBI single to shallow center for a 1-0 lead. Brandon Marsh lined an RBI single to left, the first of his three hits in the game, to make it 2-0, and Velazquez scored on Mike Trout’s double-play grounder to make it 3-0.

Detmers blanked the Guardians on one hit through four innings, surviving a pair of lengthy duels with shortstop Amed Rosario, who struck out on a 73-mph curve to end a nine-pitch at-bat in the first and whiffed on a 72-mph curve to end an 11-pitch at-bat in the third.

Detmers got the first two outs of the fifth before grooving an 0-1 sinker to Austin Hedges, who drove the 93-mph pitch over the wall in left-center for a solo homer to cut the lead to 3-1.

The Angels pushed the lead to 4-1 in the seventh when Wade led off with a double to left-center, took third on Velazquez’s grounder to first and scored on Ward’s grounder to third, which Ernie Clement bobbled, preventing the third baseman from throwing home.

Archie Bradley relieved Detmers to start the sixth and retired the side in order with a strikeout. Left-hander Aaron Loup struck out two in a one-two-three seventh.

Ryan Tepera gave up a one-out single and a two-out walk in the eighth before getting Rosario to fly to center to end the inning. Closer Raisel Iglesias gave up a leadoff single to Jose Ramirez in the ninth but struck out Owen Miller and got Josh Naylor to ground into a game-ending double play for his fifth save.