Jose Soriano pitched two-hit ball into the sixth inning of his fifth consecutive win, Yoan Moncada and Josh Lowe homered, and the Los Angeles Angels snapped the San Diego Padres‘ eight-game winning streak with an 8-0 victory Friday night.
Adam Frazier had an RBI triple and Jo Adell had a two-run double for the Angels, who opened a six-game home stand by blowing out a Southern California rival.
Soriano (5-0) continued his spectacular start to the season despite four walks, recording eight strikeouts and lowering his ERA to 0.28 with just one run allowed in his 32 2/3 innings this season. The Angels’ ace increased his major league-leading strikeout total to 39, and he joined the Milwaukee Brewers‘ Aaron Ashby as MLB‘s only pitchers with five wins.
Three Los Angeles relievers wrapped up a combined three-hitter in San Diego’s first shutout loss of the season.
Before the first pitch, Angel Stadium aired a tribute video and observed a moment of silence for Garret Anderson, the longtime Angels outfielder and franchise hits leader whose death at 53 was announced by the team earlier Friday. The Angels are wearing a patch bearing Anderson’s initials on their uniform shoulders.
Matt Waldron (0-1) yielded six runs on eight hits in his season debut for the Padres, who followed a perfect 7-0 home stand with only their second loss in two weeks. San Diego had won 11 of 12 since its 2-5 start to the season.
Waldron started 26 games for the Padres in 2024, but just one last year — and then the occasional knuckleballer got a late start in the current season after undergoing a procedure on a hemorrhoid in February.
After Moncada’s homer began a three-run rally in the second, Soriano escaped a bases-loaded jam in the third by getting Jackson Merrill to ground out.
Nolan Schanuel chased Waldron with an RBI single in the fourth before Adell and Lowe delivered two-RBI hits off David Morgan.
Soriano left after Manny Machado singled and Xander Bogaerts walked, but Chase Silseth got Gavin Sheets to fly out to the warning track in right.
Up next
Germán Márquez (2-1, 5.54 ERA) takes the Big A mound for the Padres on Saturday to face the Halos’ struggling Yusei Kikuchi (0-2, 7.50).
Reporting by The Associated Press.
