Angels Hold Off Detroit's Late Bomb, Win 3-2
Riley Greene's 390-foot shot to right center in the ninth made it a one-run game, but Los Angeles had already built just enough cushion to survive. The Angels took down Detroit 3-2 on Sunday, with a three-run middle stretch doing all the damage that mattered.
Kevin McGonigle got Detroit on the board first, launching a 402-foot homer to left center in the opening inning. It looked like the Tigers might control the tempo early — but Los Angeles answered immediately. In the second, Oswald Peraza reached on an infield single to third, and Vaughn Grissom scored to knot it at one. That play swung home win probability from 34% to 44%, and it appears to have been the moment the Angels seized the game's psychological edge.
Los Angeles didn't stop there. In the fifth, a groundout by Soler plated Zach Neto, with Nolan Schanuel advancing to second and Trout moving to third — a productive out that pushed the Angels ahead 2-1. Then in the sixth, Neto singled to right to score Peraza, making it 3-1. That two-run cushion, built quietly through situational hitting rather than power, looks like it was the difference. Schanuel went 3-for-5 on the night and Peraza finished 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run — the story of the night was LAA's lineup grinding out runs in the middle innings when it mattered most.
On the mound, Ryan Johnson gave the Angels five innings of two-hit ball, allowing just one earned run while striking out five. Casey Mize was rougher for Detroit — he lasted only 3.1 innings, surrendering five hits and one earned run before giving way to Tyler Holton, who was sharp across 1.1 innings with two strikeouts and nothing on the board. Kenley Jansen closed out the ninth with a clean line — no hits, two strikeouts — but Greene's 390-foot homer off someone in the Angels' bullpen made the final margin tighter than Los Angeles probably wanted. Detroit's two runs came entirely via the long ball, and when your offense lives and dies by the home run against a team that manufactured three runs through contact and situational baseball, the math tends to work against you. The Angels earned this one the hard way.