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Chapman’s big six, Halos’ unlucky three

MATT CHAPMAN drove in six runs Sunday as the Oakland A’s beat the Angels 12-3 in Anaheim (Flickr).

Matt Chapman did his best Mike Trout imitation on Sunday, driving in six runs with a home run, a triple and a double as the Oakland A’s crushed the Los Angeles Angels 12-3 in Anaheim.

It was the Halos’ third straight loss, following four straight wins. The Orange County team’s record fell to 42-43. The skid eliminated, for the time being, any chance of the Angels overtaking the A’s and moving into third place. They’re now four games back of their Northern California rivals, and 11 games behind the first place Houston Astros in the American League West.

Additionally, the Angels are now 4.5 games out of an American League wild card spot.

On Sunday, the Halos got two home runs by Shohei Ohtani, but not much else. Overall, they had just nine hits. The starting pitcher, Andrew Heaney (1-2), took the loss, giving up five runs in six innings. But the roof really fell in the eighth inning when the A’s scored seven runs, five against reliever Cam Bedrosian.

Angel manager Brad Ausmus was not a happy camper. “Any of us that put that uniform on, we’ve got to do a better job,” he told the Associated Press. “Today was just like a slow painful death. It just kept spiraling. Wasn’t a lot of fun to be there … We need to do better to catch teams like that, that we’re chasing in the standings.”

About the only good news on Sunday for the Angels is that infielder Tommy La Stella was chosen as a reserve for the American League in the All-Star game. He certainly held up his end against the A’s with three singles to raise his batting average to a team-high .304.

The Angels will take on another AL West rival on Monday against the Texas Rangers in Arlington at 5:05 p.m. Pacific time.

 

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