Jose Soriano threw six stellar innings to continue his road dominance and Mickey Moniak launched a three-run homer as the visiting Los Angeles Angels beat the Cleveland Guardians 6-0 on Friday night.
Nolan Schanuel homered for one of his three hits, and Willie Calhoun also had three in his season debut for the Angels, who won for just the third time in 14 games. They also snapped a four-game road skid and improved to 3-23 at Cleveland since the start of the 2015 season.
Soriano (1-4) allowed five hits and a walk but wasn’t damaged in his fifth career start. The right-hander has yielded one earned run over 17 innings of his three 2024 road starts.
Los Angeles roughed up Cleveland starter Tanner Bibee (2-1) for all six runs, plus eight hits allowed, in five innings. Meanwhile, Steven Kwan had two of the six hits for the AL Central-leading Guardians, who have lost two straight and are 3-6 since winning five in a row.
With two outs in the third, Schanuel put Los Angeles up 1-0 when he clubbed a curveball from Bibee just inside the right field foul pole for his third home run.
The Angels extended that lead an inning later via back-to-back one-out doubles from the veteran Calhoun, who was called up from Triple-A Salt Lake earlier this week, and Logan O’Hoppe. Then after Ehire Adrianza drew a walk from Bibee, the Angels delivered more two-out magic when Moniak easily cleared the right-center field wall with his second home run of the season to make it 5-0.
Moniak also singled for just his second multi-hit game of 2024.
The Angels added another run off Bibee in the fifth. They opened that inning with back-to-back singles from Schanuel and Luis Rengifo, and both moved up on a wild pitch from Bibee. Taylor Ward sent a fly ball deep to left field for the sacrifice fly and his team-leading 24th RBI.
Los Angeles’ Amir Garrett fanned two to retire the side in the seventh and Jose Saurez worked the final two innings with three strikeouts.