HOUSTON -- José Soriano continued his road success this season with a dominant outing against the Astros on Sunday at Daikin Park.
Soriano struck out eight and yielded one hit over seven scoreless innings in a 3-0 win over Houston for the Angels' second straight win, the first time that Los Angeles has won consecutive games since winning three straight over the Dodgers from Aug. 11-13.
“Really, really good,” Angels interim manager Ray Montgomery said. “Early on, the first few innings, he had some deep counts. He had some 3-0 counts on a few guys. That’s kind of out of character for him there, but he regrouped, came back in all those counts and really dialed it in. It was good.”
It was Soriano’s ninth outing this season allowing no earned runs and second straight after throwing 5 2/3 scoreless innings at the Rangers on Aug. 25. Soriano improved to 8-2 with a 2.47 ERA on the road this season.
Soriano also became the first 10-win pitcher for the Angels this season and leads the Angels with 15 quality starts.
"He was good today,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “As you can tell, we couldn't get much going offensively. Powerful sinker, breaking ball. He really had everything working.”
After allowing the first two baserunners to reach on a walk and single, Soriano retired 16 of the next 17 batters he faced, including 11 straight at one point -- walking three batters in total.
Soriano said through an interpreter that he changed up a pitch after it didn’t have the shape he wanted, and he was pleased with the results he got from there.
It was Soriano’s second straight strong outing against the Astros after he surrendered one run on three hits with 10 strikeouts over 6 2/3 innings on June 21.
The right-hander relied heavily on his sinker and knuckle curveball, throwing the two pitches a combined 74 out of 93 pitches. He got three whiffs on 13 swings on the sinker and nine whiffs on 14 swings on his knuckle curve. On the day, he had 16 whiffs on 34 total swings.
“Every pitch was working well, especially the curveball,” Soriano said.
In a scary moment in the eighth, Taylor Ward was carted off the field and loaded into an ambulance after colliding headfirst with the out-of-town scoreboard on the left-field wall trying to track down a fly ball.
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Montgomery said Ward had a cut above his right eye.
“I think he’s getting re-evaluated and going to the hospital to get some stitches,” Montgomery said.
Members of the Angels' bullpen ran onto the field and put a towel on Ward’s head as members of the Angels’ coaching staff and trainers from both teams ran to the warning track in left-center to attend to Ward.
After several minutes, Ward was placed on a cart and driven off the field to an awaiting ambulance.
Oswald Peraza hit a solo home run to right-center in the fifth to give the Angels a 1-0 lead. The homer was Peraza’s first since he hit one on May 27 as a member of the Yankees at the Angels.
Peraza, who was acquired by the Angels at the Trade Deadline, hit a go-ahead two-run single as part of a three-run ninth inning on Saturday.
“The guy has been working since the day he got here,” Montgomery said. “The idea of getting him in there, getting him some [at-bats] and seeing that was nice to see.”
Mike Trout added an RBI double in the eighth and scored on a Lance McCullers Jr. throwing error. Trout, who entered the game mired in an 0-for-10 slump, had two doubles and now sits at 1,008 RBIs for his career. He is also eight RBIs away from tying Tim Salmon for second most in Angels history.
“We’ve talked about it over and over and over again,” Montgomery said. “He’s constantly working at it. It was good to see him drive the ball off the wall like that. He can hurt you a lot of different ways whether it’s getting on base, scoring runs. I’m happy he’s in our lineup. He makes us better.”