Angels rally back to beat Astros

For the first time in a week, the Angels had music thumping loud in a happy clubhouse after the game, as players packed up for a flight with their hope flickering a little brighter.
“Anything can happen,” Brandon Phillips said after the Angels’ 7-5 victory over the Houston Astros on Sunday night. “It’s not over. I tell everybody just to believe in ourselves. Take it one game at a time and go out and try to beat the breaks off people so they know we’re serious.”
The Angels snapped their six-game losing streak, remaining 4 ½ games behind the Minnesota Twins in the wild card race.
“You got to win out,” Tyler Skaggs said. “We know that. We got to stay loose, play free.”
With seven games to play, any combination of three Angels losses an Twins victories will mathematically end their postseason hopes. While the Angels play the White Sox, the Twins will play the Indians in Cleveland.
At least the Angels can begin the series feeling better about their slumping offense, after 11 hits and five walks helped them overcome a third-inning 4-1 deficit.
Newcomers Justin Upton and Phillips each drove in two runs, including a homer apiece. It was Upton’s seventh homer with the Angels, his third in two days. The biggest hit came from Luis Valbuena, a tie-breaking two-run double in the seventh that capped an inning in which the Angels took advantage of some breaks.
Albert Pujols hit a blooper that dropped just inside the right field line. Phillips then hit a routine double play ball, but third baseman Alex Bregman booted it. Andrelton Simmons then hit a ball that ricocheted off Chris Devenski’s foot and rolled into the outfield, for a single to load the bases.
That brought up Valbuena, who battled Devenski through an 11-pitch at-bat. He capped it by yanking a changeup off the fence in right-center, driving in two to put the Angels up 6-4.
Valbuena, who had struck out all five of his previous meetings with Devenski, said he was looking for a changeup all along. When he got it, he was able to celebrate one of his biggest hits in a mostly disappointing season.
“I forgot about that,” Valbuena said of his struggles with Devenski. “This is my time... I’m so happy because we were struggling a little bit. I’m happy I could do something for my team.”
The Angels’ bullpen made the lead stand. Cam Bedrosian gave up a solo homer in the seventh, but then Yusmeiro Petit and Blake Parker worked scoreless innings. For Petit, it was a bounceback outing after he’d allowed three runs in each of his previous two games.
Angels pitchers hadn’t had much experience pitching with leads in the last week.
The Angels scored first, when Upton beat out a potential double play to drive in a run in third. It was just the second time in the past seven games that they’d taken a lead.
Like the other time, though, it didn’t last long.
Back on Thursday, the lead was gone by the first batter of the next half inning. This time, Skaggs managed to get two outs before it all went wrong.
He hit George Springer with a pitch, gave up a two-run homer to Bregman, then walked Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa. An Evan Gattis double completed the four-run outburst.
Skaggs, however, tacked on two more scoreless innings, getting through five with just those four runs.
The Angels took him off the hook for the loss before he was done pitching. Phillips homered in the fourth. In the fifth, the Angels loaded the bases with two outs, and Phillips and Simmons both drew walks to push home runs, evening the game at 4.
“The team picked me up,” Skaggs said. “We played really good baseball.”