ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Josh Bell, Yadiel Hernandez and Nelson Cruz went deep, Maikel Franco drove in three runs and the Washington Nationals snapped a three-game losing streak with a 7-3 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday night.
“Two things for me that stood out was we got the ball up and guys were on time throughout the whole game,” manager Davey Martinez said of the offense.
Josiah Gray (4-2) won his second straight start, allowing three runs and five hits in 5 1/3 innings. The right-hander, who was acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers last season in the trade deadline deal for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, also struck out three.
Jared Walsh and Brandon Marsh homered for the Angels, who had their three-game winning streak snapped. Walsh has five homers on the season including three in the past four games.
Gray has won four of his last five starts and was effective, except for allowing the homers in the fourth. The Angels went after Gray early the first couple innings, getting contact early in the count but not able to generate hits.
“I kind of figured that would be their approach. That’s probably going to be the approach for a lot of the teams is they’re going to try and get me early,” Gray said. “I’m trying to work on continuing to attack the strike zone. If they swing often, hopefully it’s a good pitch. And if not, then we got to work through some stuff.”
After being shut out 3-0 on Friday, Washington’s offense got back into the swing of things. They are batting .330 through eight games of their current road trip with nine home runs and 54 runs scored.
The Nationals lead the majors with six runs per game on the road (90 runs in 15 games) and a .300 away batting average.
“We were hitting balls hard (early in the season), we were just hitting them on…
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