ANAHEIM: Mike Trout even surprised himself in adding to his growing list of impressive big league achievements.
Trout hit for the cycle and drove in five runs, Josh Hamilton celebrated his 32nd birthday with a homer and a triple his first two times up, and Howie Kendrick also went deep in the Los Angeles Angels ‘ 12-0 rout of the Seattle Mariners yesterday.
Trout, last season’s AL rookie of the year and MVP runner-up, became the youngest AL player to hit for the cycle and third youngest in the major leagues since 1930. He’s also the sixth player in Angels history to complete the cycle and the first to do it since Chone Figgins on Sept. 16, 2006, at Texas.
“It was one of those nights,” Trout said. “I didn’t really think about it until about the eighth inning. And when I got on deck, I started feeling it a little bit. To be honest, I thought Josh was going to hit for the cycle after his those first two at-bats. I wasn’t thinking about myself.”
After taking a called third strike his first time up, Trout reached on an infield single in the third inning, hit an RBI triple in the fourth and added a three-run double in the sixth before homering in the eighth on a 2-0 pitch from Lucas Luetge .
“At 2-0, I think I was swinging at anything,” Trout said. “It was in the back of my mind, trying to hit a home run. I just barreled it up and it went out. It feels great.”
Jerome Williams (3-1) scattered six hits over eight innings, struck out six and walked two while helping send the Mariners to their season-high fifth straight loss. The right-hander got one more run of support as he did in his three-previous starts this season combined.
Aaron Harang (1-5) lasted only 3 1-2 innings in his first outing since May 7, giving up seven runs and nine hits - seven of them for extra bases. The 35-year-old right-hander, who missed his previous turn in the rotation because of stiffness in his lower back, has yet to go more than six innings in any of his six starts with the Mariners.
“About the only good thing that came out of tonight was the fact that the back wasn’t an issue,” Harang said.
The Angels grabbed a 3-0 lead in the first. Erick Aybar led off with a double, Albert Pujols singled him home, and Hamilton drove a 3-2 pitch to left-center for his sixth homer. In the three previous games Hamilton played on his birthday in the major leagues, he did not have an RBI in 12 at-bats.
Los Angeles extended the margin to 7-0 in the fourth, scoring four runs on five extra-base hits. Hamilton legged out his second triple of the season leading off and Kendrick drove the next pitch to right-center for his seventh home run, one fewer than he had last year. Alberto Callaspo followed with a double, Aybar drove him in with a two-out double, and Trout chased Harang with his triple to right-center.
“We saw him do a lot of these things last year as a leadoff guy, and now he’s hitting in the two spot,” Kendrick said. Agencies
