Anthony Rendon hit a home run, doubled and drove in four runs to help the Los Angeles Angels rally for an 8-7 victory against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the middle game of a three-game series on Saturday afternoon at Phoenix.
Rendon’s sacrifice fly tied the score in the ninth and the Angels tacked on two more runs to secure their season-high fifth straight victory and move their record back to .500 for the first time since May 2.
Angels starter Alex Cobb went three innings, allowing five runs and seven hits, striking out three and walking one. Alex Claudio (1-1) pitched a scoreless eighth to earn the win, and Raisel Iglesias closed the ninth for his 11th save.
Arizona starter Caleb Smith allowed four runs and five hits in 4 1/3 innings. He struck out six and walked three.
Josh Rojas homered twice for the Diamondbacks, who have lost nine consecutive games.
Rendon’s fourth RBI of the game came off Joakim Soria (0-3) to tie the score at 6-all. Jose Iglesias and Taylor Ward followed immediately with back-to-back run-scoring doubles to give the Angels an 8-6 lead.
Rojas went deep off Iglesias with two outs in the ninth to make it 8-7.
The Diamondbacks scored five runs after two were out in the third inning to take a 5-0 lead.
Eduardo Escobar had an RBI single and Christian Walker produced a run-scoring double before David Peralta singled up the middle to drive in two runs for a 4-0 lead. The Diamondbacks added another run on an infield single from Nick Ahmed to make it 5-0.
Rendon led off the fourth with a home run, his first since May 3, and Juan Lagares reached on a two-out double. The Angels sent up pinch-hitter Phil Gosselin in Cobb’s spot and he dropped an RBI single into shallow left to cut the deficit to 5-2.
Rendon greeted Clarke with a two-run double in the fifth to make it 5-4.
Rojas went deep to lead off the seventh and extend the Arizona lead to 6-4.
Shohei Ohtani delivered a pinch-hit single in the eighth to put runners on the corners with no out. The Angels then scored on a Kean Wong squeeze to pull within a run at 6-5 in advance of their ninth-inning rally.
–Field Level Media