Sean Manaea was brilliant in his return from shoulder surgery in September, allowing no more than two runs in any of his five starts.
Manaea was in similar form through 3 ⅔ innings Saturday, his first outing of this oddball season, before things came apart a bit. He gave up a homer to Justin Upton with two outs in the fourth, then the Angels scored three times in the fifth in a 4-1 victory over Oakland.
“I started off hot,” Manaea said. “Then I just ran out of steam. Just one of those things.”
Manaea needed only 27 pitches to navigate the first three innings, and he retired his first 11 batters. But after a short training camp, Manaea lost a tad on his fastball in the fifth — he had hit 90-plus mph a few times early in the game, up from Monday night’s outing against the Giants — as well as some sharpness on his breaking stuff.
“He was great, he had 39 pitches going into the fifth and it happened pretty quick — he got a few balls in the middle of the plate to three hitters, which he hadn’t been doing,” manager Bob Melvin said. “I was really encouraged by the way he threw compared to what we saw in the Bay Bridge series. It looked like he had better life on his fastball and all his pitches.”
In addition, left fielder Robbie Grossman played it safe on David Fletcher’s fifth-inning drive into the gap, pulling up short as the ball bounced off the wall next to him and two runs scored. Melvin did not have any issue with the way Grossman played it, saying left field can be tough with the sun and he thought the ball would hit off the wall.
With Fletcher at second, J.B. Wendelken took over to face Angels star Mike Trout, who hit a soft looper to right. Stephen Piscotty raced in to make a tumbling grab, ending the inning.
Grossman did drive in Oakland’s only run with a two-out, seventh-inning single off Keynan Middleton, just into the game in relief of starter Dylan Bundy. Piscotty, who had doubled off Bundy, scored on the hit, one of just three Bundy allowed in 6 ⅔ innings.
Oakland’s best chance to get back into the game came in the eighth, when Marcus Semien greeted Ty Buttrey with an infield single and Ramón Laureano added a base hit to left. But Matt Chapman grounded into a double play and with Semien at third, Matt Olson, the previous night’s hero, ended the inning with a comebacker.
