With only eight games left in the season, the Los Angeles Angels will need a little help from other teams to catch the wild-card, but they also will need to help themselves by doing one thing: winning.
The team did just that on Tuesday night, defeating the Seattle Mariners 5-4 to stay just two games behind the Oakland Athletics for the second AL wild-card spot. The A's beat the Texas Rangers 3-2 on Tuesday.
Zack Greinke pitched a stellar game for the Angels, striking out a season-high 13 batters in only five innings of work. The Angels were powered by home runs from Torii Hunter and Erick Aybar and held off a Seattle comeback in the seventh to get the victory.
"It was kind of fluky. I was trying to get ahead of guys, and it just kind of worked out that way," Greinke said to the Associated Press. "I was just throwing strikes, and I had 27 pitches in the first inning because there were long at-bats. So there was really nothing I could do about it.
According to ESPN Stats, Greinke became the first pitcher in the live-ball era (since 1920) to strike out 13 batters in a start that lasted only five innings. Randy Johnson had 13 through his first five frames on July 4, 2001, for Arizona against Houston, but he threw one more inning. The Angels also tied a major league record with 20 strikeouts in a nine-inning game.
"The next couple of innings, I was trying to get balls put in play so that I could get a little deeper into the game, but it wasn't happening that way," Greinke added. "I wasn't trying to get strikeouts, but I'm not complaining. I got a bunch of them early, but later on it was hard to go for a strikeout because there were guys in scoring position in a close game."
Greinke won his fifth straight decision in his last seven starts and was able to get out of a bases loaded situation in the fifth inning with a strikeout. He tied a career high after earning his 16th win and was two strikeouts off from his career-best performance. He struck out 242 K's in 2009 with the Royals and 201 two years later.
"I used to try to strike everyone out," said Greinke. "But the No. 1 problem with it is that it just takes too much energy out of you sometimes and wears you down later in the game. Maybe that's what Mike was thinking."
Greinke only lasted five innings due to a 110 pitch count that was put on by manager Mike Scioscia and pitching coach Mike Butcher.
"Zack has the kind of stuff where he can strike out a lot of guys on any given day," Scioscia said. "Those other games where he was into about 109-110 pitches, he was working hard to get there. And tonight he bounced back very well. I don't know if I've ever seen a guy throw so many pitches in five innings and be so successful. Usually when you do that, you're having a tough night. But he struck out 13 guys and had only one run on the board."
The Angels got off to an early lead after an Albert Pujols RBI single and added another run on a sacrifice fly from Alberto Callaspo.
Justin Smoak hit his first of two home runs in the fourth inning to bring the score to 2-1, but the Angels quickly responded. Hunter hit a home run in the fifth after a single by Mike Trout and they added another in the sixth on Aybar's solo shot to make it 5-1.
Following Franklin Gutierrez's RBI double in the seventh, Smoak hit his second home run to cut the lead to 5-4, but that was all they would get. Smoak homered from both sides of the plate in the game.
"Greinke's got good stuff, so we knew coming in tonight that we had to go out there swinging in every at-bat," Smoak said. "We had some good at-bats against him, but we couldn't put that ball in play with two strikes. When a guy throws stuff like that, you just go up there and battle. And he definitely won most of those battles."
The Angels had high expectations this year after signing free agent first baseman Albert Pujols and pitcher CJ Wilson to deals totaling over $300 million in the offseason. After a slow start, the team has improved greatly due to the play of MVP-candidate and rookie Mike Trout, who is third in the league with a .324 average.
If the Angels can catch the Athletics and sneak into the playoffs, the early season struggles will be all but forgotten.
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