Brandon Drury went 3-for-4 with two homers and three RBIs, and the Los Angeles Angels beat the visiting Oakland Athletics 7-3 Sunday as the teams finished their 2023 seasons in Anaheim, Calif.
Both teams had forgettable campaigns.
Oakland finished the year 50-112, last in the American League West, with the second-worst mark in franchise history behind the 1916 Philadelphia A’s that lost 117 games.
However, Oakland’s Esteury Ruiz set the AL record for stolen bases by a rookie with 67 when he stole third in the third inning, breaking Kenny Lofton’s 1982 mark.
The fourth-place Angels ended up 73-89. They fell from contention with a 17-38 record since Aug. 1. The Angels took the season series 7-6 between the teams, as Drury was in the center of nearly everything offensively for his team.
He put Los Angeles up 1-0 in the first when he turned on a 3-1 fastball from A’s left-hander JP Sears and drove it 401 feet into the Angels’ bullpen beyond the left field wall.
The Angels made it 2-0 in the third on Randal Grichuk’s 16th homer of the year, a 409-foot blast that landed in nearly the same spot as Drury’s.
Drury scored on an error in the fourth for a 3-0 lead. The next inning, Drury ripped a two-run opposite-field homer to right and Eduardo Escobar added an RBI single as the Angels stretched the lead to 6-0. It was Drury’s 26th blast of the season.
David Fletcher scored on a wild pitch in the sixth to cap the Angels’ scoring.
The A’s broke the shutout on a seventh-inning RBI single from Nick Allen, before All-Star Brent Rooker hit his 30th homer, a 400-footer, in the eighth. Ruiz added an RBI single in the ninth.
Angels right-hander Carson Fulmer (1-1) got his first MLB win since 2019, allowing two hits over five scoreless innings with three walks and three strikeouts.
Sears (5-14) lasted just four innings, giving up three runs on four hits. He walked two and struck out four.
Shohei Ohtani, an impending free agent and the probable AL MVP in November, cheered from the Angels dugout before walking off the field with his teammates after the win.
–Field Level Media
