Josh Naylor drove in three runs as the Cleveland Guardians led all the way to beat the Los Angeles Angels 6-3 in Anaheim, Calif., on Friday.
The Guardians (68-74) remained 6 1/2 games behind the American League Central-leading Minnesota Twins (74-67) with 20 games to play.
Five Cleveland players collected two hits apiece. Guardians starter Logan Allen (7-7) worked five innings, allowing one run on three hits and two walks on 90 pitches. He struck out six, including fanning three straight Angels in the third.
Emmanuel Clase pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his major-league-best 39th save after blowing a 10th save chance the night before.
The depleted Angels, without slugger Shohei Ohtani (oblique) for the fifth straight game, started four rookies. Logan O’Hoppe homered and singled for Los Angeles (65-77), which fell for the 10th in 12 games.
Angels starter Griffin Canning (7-6) went 5 1/3 innings on 92 pitches, allowing two runs on eight hits and two walks with three strikeouts.
Cleveland went up 1-0 in the third inning when Josh Naylor’s sharp single scored Steven Kwan, who had led off with a double. The Guardians added another in the fourth, getting a pair of infield singles before Bo Naylor’s hit to left scored Gabriel Arias.
The Angels cut the lead in half in the bottom of the fourth on Jordyn Adams’ sacrifice fly for his first major league RBI.
Arias doubled with one out in the sixth, ending Canning’s night. Kolton Ingram came on to relieve, but gave up a sacrifice fly to Kwan and three walks, including one to Josh Naylor that forced in Will Brennan for a 4-1 lead.
In the bottom of the sixth, O’Hoppe connected for a 428-foot, two-run homer off Nick Sandlin over the left-center-field wall. His seventh homer to cut the Angels‘ deficit to 4-3.
In the eighth, the Guardians loaded the bases on three singles against Jose Marte. Josh Naylor’s sacrifice fly scored his younger brother Bo, and a sacrifice fly from Ramon Laureano gave Cleveland a 6-3 cushion.
—Field Level Media
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