Taylor Ward's 2nd grand slam of trip leads Angels to 7th consecutive win

Jeff Fletcher, The Orange County Register on May 22, 2025

Published in Baseball

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The way things are going for the Angels lately, not even a bad six innings could derail them.

Taylor Ward’s seventh-inning grand slam erased a three-run deficit, leading the Angels to a 10-5 victory over the A’s on Thursday afternoon. They extended their winning streak to seven games.

The Angels (24-25) had not won seven games in a row since 2022, and they hadn’t won seven straight road games since 2018.

The bats continue to be the story of the streak. The Angels scored at least six runs in six of the games, averaging 7.7 runs. They’ve hit 17 homers.

On Thursday, though, they got started late.

At the end of the sixth inning, the Angels trailed 5-2. Starter Tyler Anderson pitched a sloppy game, with a career-high six walks, and the offense had wasted a couple of opportunities to put multiple runs on the board.

Kevin Newman led off the seventh with a single. An out later, Zach Neto punched a single to right field, his third hit of the game. Nolan Schanuel then walked on four pitches.

Ward got a 1-and-0 fastball over the middle of the plate and he hammered it over the center-field fence, for his second grand slam on this trip. He hit one in the ninth inning in San Diego in the first game of the trip.

It was the 14th homer of the season for Ward, including eight in the last 16 games.

Ward also has an extra-base hit in eight straight games, the first Angels player to do that since Tim Salmon in 2000.

Ward had sole possession of the team lead in homers for just a couple of minutes. Logan O’Hoppe, who had struck out with runners in scoring position in his previous two trips, then hit an opposite-field homer. It was O’Hoppe’s 14th of the season, and fourth in the last three games.

With their first lead of the game, the Angels had to get through nine more outs with a bullpen that has been worked hard during the winning streak.

Left-hander Reid Detmers pitched a scoreless eighth, thanks to a double play. Detmers has allowed one run in six innings since the three-game nightmare he endured a couple of weeks ago. Ryan Zeferjahn, pitching for the fifth time in seven days, got through a scoreless eighth with the help of a double play.

With closer Kenley Jansen apparently getting another day off — he didn’t warm at all for what would have been his fifth appearance in seven days — the Angels gave themselves breathing room with three more runs in the top of the ninth. Connor Brodgon finished for the second game in a row.

It was a better finish than the start for Anderson, who was charged with five runs in 4 2/3 innings.

Besides the walks, Anderson was hit hard. He gave up a two-run homer to Brent Rooker in the first inning. In the fifth, he allowed another double to Rooker. Neto helped bail him out of further trouble by combining with Ward, the left fielder, on a pair of throws to nail a runner at the plate.