ANAHEIM -- Jo Adell was thinking "fastball" the whole way.
“I was gonna stay on the fastball through the whole at-bat,” Adell said. “Just be aggressive on the pitches over home plate, and I think I was able to get some good swings off. I hit some balls foul earlier in the game and earlier in that at-bat, so that let me know that I was at least on time for the fastball.
“Once I got another one in the strike zone, I was able to handle it.”
Sure enough, Adell got another fastball over the inner-half of the plate on the fifth pitch he saw from Athletics reliever Osvaldo Bido in the bottom of the sixth inning. And Adell put it on a rope. The ball went screaming 111.0 mph over the left-field wall a Statcast-projected 422 feet.
The two-run blast was Adell’s 13th home run of the season, capping off a six-run inning for the Halos that made the difference as they secured a 6-5 win over the Athletics and, with the victory, a three-game sweep of the AL West foes.
“Took us a while to get going,” Adell said. “JP [Sears] made some pretty good pitches early on and I think for us, we finally found a way to pass that baton. Kind of like what we’ve been talking about and preaching of, find a way to get on base, put a ball in play, force the defense to make plays, and got a little rhythm going.”
And while the Angels as a whole seem to have found some rhythm after going 7-3 in their past 10 games and moving into a tie for second place in the division, Adell himself has been on a tear, too, after struggling at the plate to begin the season.
Adell was batting .184 through May 25. Since then, however, he’s hit .333 with a 1.231 OPS. Out of his nine hits in June, six have been homers, tied for the most long balls in MLB this month with the Mets' Pete Alonso.
“He’s not missing the fastball, not missing the breaking ball that’s been in the zone,” manager Ron Washington said. “He hit one off the lefty the other night. It was a breaking ball coming into him. He hit a couple of hangers. He’s been getting on some fastballs.
“He’s in the zone right now. He feels good about himself right now.”
Adell attributes his turnaround to keeping an aggressive mentality, especially when it comes to the fastball. Earlier in the year, Adell felt like he was crushing offspeed pitches but having trouble catching up to the heater.
But by sitting on fastballs in the zone, Adell is able to be on time and put pressure on opposing pitchers, which leads to more mistakes that he can capitalize on.
“That sets up everything else,” Adell said. “... Hitting those fastballs with authority -- which is forcing some of those breaking balls to come in. It’s hard to land a breaking ball in a perfect spot every time, so been able to put off good swings against those as well.”
That aggressive mentality has also carried over to the defensive side of the ball for Adell. After a couple notable blunders earlier in the series -- including running into the wall while trying to rob a home run and a ball bouncing off his glove -- Adell finally snagged a fly ball in the top of the sixth inning on Wednesday, leaping near the wall in right-center field to prevent a potential extra-base hit from JJ Bleday and keep the Angels within three runs of the A’s ahead of their monster bottom half of the inning.
“Whenever you’re making plays at the wall -- and whenever you’re going back towards the wall -- you’re being aggressive,” Adell said. “Whatever happens is gonna happen. My thought process didn’t change, even from the other night. I was aggressive on a ball that was hit well and sometimes you make it, sometimes you don’t, but it’s not gonna take my aggressiveness away.”
This time though, Adell did make it. And the potential extra-base hit he robbed might’ve made the difference in Wednesday’s game.
“Oh, unbelievable,” starter Kyle Hendricks said about Adell’s catch. “I didn’t think it was gonna really travel that far but the wind was blowing out just a little bit, and he didn’t give up on it at all. He played it all the way back there, and it was probably a homer that he took back.
“So [he] saved me, and he’s been making tons of great plays, man. And just playing all around good baseball.”