The Detroit Tigers have one more game left in Anaheim this weekend. They’ve already seen way too much of Shohei Ohtani.
The Los Angeles Angels defeated the Tigers for the third consecutive night and once again, Ohtani played a starring role. He won the series opener on the mound Thursday, hit two homers on Friday and supplied a two-run blast in the Angels’ 8-3 victory on Saturday.
Tigers starter Wily Peralta, making his first major-league start since 2017, allowed five runs in five innings.
Angels starter Patrick Sandoval dazzled the Tigers with his changeup, recording seven of his nine strikeouts in his 5 ⅔ inning stint with that pitch.
Daz Cameron and Jonathan Schoop homered for the Tigers.
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Homers mar Peralta’s start
Relying on a fastball-slider mix, Peralta had a clean first inning but there was traffic on the base paths in his four other innings of work.
The Angels pushed across a run in the second on two singles and a groundout.
They used the long ball to stretch their lead to 5-0 in the third. Ohtani, who struck out on a fastball his first time up, dug out a 95-MPH heater and lashed it over the left-field wall.
Following a Taylor Ward double, Jared Walsh jumped on a hanging slider and powered it over the right-field wall to make it 5-0.
The Angels had three more baserunners the next two innings but Peralta, who recorded two strikeouts, prevented further damage during his 87-pitch outing.
The 32-year-old Peralta pitched 1 ⅓ innings of scoreless relief at Kansas City on Tuesday after being called up from Triple A Toledo. He made six starts for the Mud Hens and posted a 2.75 ERA but he didn’t go more than five innings in any of those appearances.
With dad watching, Daz goes deep
Mike Cameron, who hit 278 career home runs, watched the game from field-level seats with super agent Scott Boras. He got a bird’s eye view of son Daz’s swing as he clubbed his second career homer in the fifth inning to put the Tigers on the scoreboard.
Daz Cameron’s 415-foot shot off a 92-MPH Sandoval fastball landed over the right-center field wall.
Cameron also went to the right side, fighting off a Steve Cishek fastball, for an RBI single in the sixth.
Mental errors pile up
Cameron made a careless play in Thursday’s 7-5 loss in center field when he approached a Kean Wong hit nonchalantly and Wong legged it into a double.
Prior to Ohtani’s homer, David Fletcher took advantage of another Tigers mental mistake on Saturday. After Fletcher reached on a single, Justin Upton fouled out to catcher Taylor Rogers.
Fletcher strayed off the bag after Rogers caught the ball, then took off for second as Rogers casually tossed it back to Peralta.
Peralta wheeled around and bounced the throw, allowing Fletcher to reach third.
In the eighth with runners on the corners, Upton took off for second as Joe Jimenez looked in for the sign. Jimenez wheeled and bounced the throw to second, allowing Upton to easily steal the bag while Fletcher scooted in from third.
