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ANAHEIM – The Angels are still no match for Chris Sale.
The veteran Atlanta Braves left-hander picked up where he left off against the Angels five years ago, allowing two runs and six hits in six innings in an 11-3 win at Angel Stadium on Saturday night.
Sale (14-3) entered the game with a 7-0 record and a 1.06 ERA in 10 career appearances against the Angels, including eight as a starter, and had not allowed a single earned run in 21 innings in his previous three appearances against the Angels.
He improved that streak to 26 1/3 innings before the Angels finally scored twice against him in the sixth inning.
“You just have to stay in the game and let him pitch and keep going, get him out of there and get him in the bullpen, but we couldn’t stay there,” Angels manager Ron Washington said. “We just couldn’t stop them.”
Sale also led the National League in ERA (2.61) and strikeouts per nine innings (11.8) and was second in WHIP (0.98). Against the Angels, he had 10 strikeouts and two walks.
To make matters worse, only two of the nine players in the Angels’ batting order had previously faced Sale.
Nolan Schanuel had three hits and scored twice and No. 4 batter Kevin Pillar had two hits and two RBIs for the Angels (53-70), who won the opener of the three-game series 3-2 on Friday night.
Marcell Ozuna gave Sale an early lead by hitting a three-run home run in the first inning before Angels starter Griffin Canning could get an out.
“This is the kind of pitcher that, if you give him a head start, he knows how to get it there,” Washington said.
Canning (4-11) lasted just 4 1/3 innings, allowing a career-high seven runs and eight hits while allowing three strikeouts and a walk.
“It’s not fun to keep going out there and letting the team down, especially against a guy like Chris Sale on the other side,” Canning said. “I try to stay optimistic and keep working.”
Ozuna had three hits and scored three times, Whit Merrifield and Ramon Laureano also hit home runs and Michael Harris II had three hits and scored twice for the Braves (65-58).
Harris hit a leadoff double to left-center field and Austin Riley followed with a line drive single to left to put runners on the corners in the first inning. Ozuna then hit a 2-2 slider to the batter’s eye in center field for a 3-0 lead.
This was Ozuna’s 36th home run of the season and gave him 93 RBIs, which puts him at the top of the National League.
The Angels nearly had a double play to end the second inning, but Merrifield beat the throw to first base, stole second base without a throw and came home on a single by Harris to the left outfield to extend the lead to 4-0.
The Angels left two runners behind in the second inning and had runners on first and second base with no outs in the third, but Schanuel worked a double play that nearly turned into a triple play.
The ground rules of the stadium came into effect when Merrifield threw a deep pass to Canning early in the fifth, extending the lead to 5-0. The ball hit the backstop in the visitors’ bullpen and bounced back onto the field, but was quickly ruled a home run.
Canning left the field after allowing a single by Harris and a walk by Ozuna in the same inning.
“After the first two innings, he settled for two and then he lost again,” Washington said. “Tonight, he just had nothing for them. If he made a mistake anywhere in the strike zone, they hit him, they hit him hard.”
Mike Baumann came in and got the second out, but Travis d’Arnaud hit a line drive to center that bounced off the glove of a diving Pillar and led to a two-run double, extending the lead to 7-0.
Laureano then hit a two-run home run to make it 9-0.
“If we could have come out of the bullpen and kept the game there and not allowed those five runs in the fifth inning, it would have been a ballgame,” Washington said. “If Pillar makes the catch, we’re not going to get those five runs on the board.”
Sale had struck out 10 in a row when Schanuel hit a single with one out in the sixth inning. Pillar then hit a double just inside the third-base line, allowing Schanuel to score from first base and cut the score to 9-1.
Pillar ran to third base on the home throw and then scored on a wild pitch to make it 9-2.
The Braves got those runs back in the seventh inning when a relay run by shortstop Zach Neto to first base on a potential double play grounder with the bases loaded went into the Atlanta dugout, extending the lead to 11-2.
Schanuel doubled in the eighth inning and Pillar brought him home a second time with a single to cut the gap to 11-3.
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