Jo Adell homered twice in the same inning, Taylor Ward and Mike Trout also hit a pair of homers and the visiting Los Angeles Angels claimed their fourth straight series to open the season in an 11-1 pounding of the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday afternoon.
Adell went 2-for-4 with four RBIs in an eight-run fifth inning. Ward was 3-for-5 with three RBIs, while Trout drove in three runs to round out the Angels’ six-homer outburst. Adell is the third player in Angels history to hit two home runs in the same inning.
Logan O’Hoppe was 3-for-5 with a double and two runs scored as the Angels had 14 hits and won for the eighth time in 12 games.
Los Angeles right-hander Jose Soriano (2-1) allowed one run on five hits in 7 2/3 innings. He struck out four and walked three.
While Tampa Bay mustered only six hits, Junior Caminero was 3-for-5 with a run. Starter Zack Littell (0-3) surrendered four homers and eight hits as Los Angeles rocked him with their first seven runs. He fanned four with a walk.
Ward swatted the second pitch of the game from Littell an estimated 352 feet for a 1-0 lead.
Los Angeles added to the advantage in the second when O’Hoppe opened with a double then scored after Nolan Schanuel looped a fly to shallow left that bounced out of play for an RBI ground-rule double.
Tampa Bay right fielder Jake Mangum saved a run in the fourth when he made a leaping catch to rob Schanuel of a home run.
Soriano silenced the Rays’ offense through three innings on just a hit and a walk, but Tampa Bay broke through in the fourth after Caminero’s leadoff double and Jonathan Aranda’s RBI single.
Los Angeles rocked Littell for five straight hits in the fifth, including three home runs, as Adell, Ward and Trout all went deep early in the inning for a 7-1 lead. Trout’s homer traveled just 320 feet down the right field line, barely eclipsing the 314-foot mark. Adell’s three-run blast made it 10-1 in the explosive frame.
Trout connected on his second home run of the game and fifth of the season in the ninth off Hunter Bigge.
