Christian Moore delivered the biggest swing of the night, and the Angels made it count in a 6-4 win over the Mariners on Thursday.
With the game hanging in the balance and Mariners manager Dan Wilson considering a bullpen move, right-hander Bryan Woo changed his mind. Woo had already reached 105 pitches in a one-run game and had runners on first and second with one out, but he talked Wilson out of going to the bullpen.
That decision set up the moment.
Woo opened Moore’s at-bat with three straight balls before Moore took strike one automatically. On the fifth pitch, he got a fastball up in the zone and sent it off the top of the wall in center field, clearing the bases for what turned into the winning runs.
It was Moore’s second hit and third RBI of the game, and it capped a night in which he kept showing up in the middle of the Angels’ offense. He started the scoring in the second inning with an RBI single that brought in Josh Lowe.
Seattle answered immediately. In the bottom of the inning, Julio Rodríguez launched a two-run homer and Leo Rivas added an RBI single to give the Mariners three runs in the frame.
The Angels kept coming back. In the fifth, Lowe doubled to lead off the inning, then Moore struck out on a curveball in the dirt.
Cal Raleigh’s throw sailed into right field, letting the Angels move runners to second and third with nobody out. Bryce Teodosio followed with a groundout that scored Lowe and sent Moore to third, and Zach Neto brought Moore home with an RBI single to tie the game.
The tie didn’t last long. J.P. Crawford opened the bottom of the fifth with a walk, advanced to third on a pair of groundouts, and scored on a wild pitch from right-hander Grayson Rodriguez.
But the Angels answered again almost immediately. Moisés Ballesteros walked, Lowe was hit by a pitch, and then came the pivotal sequence that led to Moore’s go-ahead double.
The Angels added one more in the eighth when Denzer Guzman walked to start the inning, moved up on a groundout and scored on Teodosio’s RBI single.
On the mound, left-hander Sammy Peralta worked three scoreless innings, and right-hander Ryan Watson finished it off in the ninth.
The Angels are now 61-98 with three games left, still trying to avoid the first 100-loss season in franchise history.
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