Bottom of Angels' order powers rout of Dodgers

LOS ANGELES — The Angels unleashed five games’ worth of frustration on the Dodgers.

After getting outscored by 36 runs in losing the first five games of the Freeway Series, the Angels rode a mind-boggling performance from the bottom of their order to a 13-5 victory on Sunday afternoon.

Jo Adell, Nick Madrigal, José Siri and Sebastian Rivero combined for 13 hits, including five from Rivero and four from Adell. The bottom four hitters in the order drove in 10 runs.

The Angels scored only five runs in their first five losses to the Dodgers, and Rivero – a 27-year-old journeyman backup catcher – drove in six all by himself on Sunday. He came into the game with eight RBIs in his 67-game big league career.

“Honestly I saw the ball good at plate,” Rivero said. “There’s no doubt about that. This morning when I woke up, I woke up feeling tired. Probably those are the best days when you’re feeling a little bit worn out.”

Madrigal had only one hit, but provided some of the game’s key moments.

In his first three plate appearances, he saw 32 pitches and drew three walks. He was called out on strikes three times, but each time he tapped his helmet and got new life from the ABS.

In the second inning, Madrigal seemed to be on a mission to get everyone at Dodger Stadium a foul ball. He saw 14 pitches from Dodgers’ starter Emmet Sheehan. He also drew a 12-pitch walk in the fourth. The Angels scored after each of his walks.

“Pitch after pitch, foul ball after foul ball, I think it just sets the tone for the rest of the team,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said. “They see that. They see him grinding at-bats. It kind of creates this atmosphere in the dugout of grinding.”

Adell, who was on base during all three of Madrigal’s walks, said it was impressive to watch.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Adell said. “It just shows you what he can do when he’s in the mix. Just unbelievable at-bats all the way through. I’ve never seen that. That was pretty awesome.”

Madrigal’s second-inning walk took a big bite out of Sheehan’s day. He had thrown 35 pitches in the second inning alone when Dodgers manager Dave Roberts came to get him. The Dodgers were only down 2-0 at the time, but they had plenty of fresh relievers after dominant starts from Roki Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the previous two games.

“I just didn’t feel comfortable getting him past the 40-pitch mark in one inning, and in that second inning he had one out, and then here comes (Zach) Neto, and then here comes (Mike) Trout,” Roberts said. “So, obviously, the bullpen had to take the toll today, the brunt of it, but with the off day (Monday), I feel like we could reset. And, again, I just didn’t feel comfortable going out there, and you know, I love the way that Emmet felt that there was more in the tank, but I’m just not. … I would do that to any of our guys.”

After Roberts pulled Sheehan, it didn’t get any better for the Dodgers.

Right-hander Edgardo Henriquez didn’t give up a run, but then the Angels scored against right-hander Blake Treinen, left-hander Alex Vesia, right-hander Jonathan Hernandez and right-hander Kyle Hurt.

Hernandez gave up six runs in the top of the seventh, just after the Dodgers had jumped back into the game by cutting the deficit from five to one on back-to-back homers from Daulton Rushing — one of his four hits — and Ryan Ward.

When the Angels broke the game open, it was the bottom of the order doing the damage, as they had been all day.

Rivero put on a clinic in bat control. With two outs and the bases loaded in the second, he poked a 2-and-2 pitch into shallow right, driving in two. In the fourth, he was down 0-and-2 when he blooped one over the drawn-in infield to knock in two more.

“I have never been afraid to hit with two strikes,” Rivero said. “That’s why probably I took the first pitch often. I’m not afraid to battle the at-bats. Let the ball come to me and hit it the other way.”

After Rivero’s RBI single in the eighth, he was aboard for Zach Neto’s three-run homer.

That gave the Angels a seven-run lead before opening the bullpen door. Relievers Drew Pomeranz, Chase Silseth, Sam Bachman and Mitch Farris were able to shut out the Dodgers over the last three innings to preserve the victory for José Soriano.

Soriano gave up five runs in six innings, which doesn’t quite eliminate the concern about him after a rough month.

For the first five innings, Soriano did a nice job pounding the strike zone, especially since he’d walked six in the last time he faced the Dodgers and seven in his start last week. Soriano walked only two on Sunday.

His velocity was down a tick, but it was a trade he was happy to make to have better control.

“I’m not worried about that,” he said. “I just want to throw strikes.”

Four of the runs scored in a quick burst in the sixth, when Neto made an error just before Rushing’s three-run homer. That briefly let the Dodgers back in the game, before Adell gave the Angels a jolt with his two-run homer in the seventh.

“A team like the Dodgers, they’re never really out of a game, so that was kind of our our thing is to kind of go back and continue to scratch and punch,” Adell said. “We knew we weren’t done putting up runs, and we wanted to put ourselves in a position to where we could get that healthy lead, and we ended up doing so.”

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