REUTERS
August 5, 2021 at 15:55 JST
Jack Mayfield homered for the second straight night and Shohei Ohtani pitched six innings of one-run ball as the Los Angeles Angels beat the Texas Rangers 2-1 on Wednesday in Arlington, Texas.
Mayfield had three hits in the No. 9 spot for the Angels, who improved to 4-25 when scoring two runs or fewer this season.
Ohtani (6-1) allowed four hits while striking out six. He did not walk a batter for the second straight outing and has issued just one walk in his past 26 innings.
Austin Warren and Steve Cishek each tossed a shutout innings for Los Angeles before Raisel Iglesias pitched the ninth for his 23rd save.
Rangers left-hander Kolby Allard (2-10) lost his eighth consecutive start. He allowed two runs and six hits and no walks in six innings. Allard struck out three.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa had three hits in the leadoff spot for Texas, which will try to earn a split in the four-game series on Thursday afternoon.
Allard retired the first seven batters before Juan Lagares and Mayfield had back-to-back, one-out singles in the third.
With two outs, a pitch in the dirt got away from catcher Jonah Heim. He was unable to immediately locate the ball, allowing Lagares to score from second on the wild pitch for a 1-0 lead.
In the fifth, Mayfield clubbed a two-out solo homer to left-center field to make it 2-0.
Mayfield, who is expected to get regular playing time at third base after the Angels announced on Wednesday that Anthony Rendon will undergo season-ending hip surgery, has all six of his home runs in the past 17 games.
Kiner-Falefa doubled to lead off the sixth inning against Ohtani. He advanced to third on a Nathaniel Lowe groundout and scored on an Adolis Garcia groundout to cut the deficit to 2-1.
Garcia drew a leadoff walk in the ninth, but Iglesias struck out Heim, then got Andy Ibanez to ground into a game-ending double play.
Ohtani went 0-for-3 at the plate.
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