SEATTLE — The new and improved Reid Detmers continues to give the Angels hope for the future.
Detmers gave up one run in seven innings in the Angels’ 7-1 victory over the Seattle Mariners in the second game of a split doubleheader on Saturday night.
Detmers’ performance, along with homers by Mickey Moniak and David Fletcher, helped the Angels split after they lost the first game, 2-1.
Detmers, a 23-year-old rookie left-hander, has now posted a 1.26 ERA over 28-2/3 innings in five starts since he returned from a brief demotion to Triple-A. He has struck out 34 and walked 10.
Even though he’d pitched a no-hitter in May, Detmers had a 4.66 ERA when he was sent down in June. At Salt Lake, Detmers made a minor tweak to his delivery that helped him throw his slider, and since then he’s been a different pitcher.
On Saturday night he retired the first eight Mariners hitters before giving up a single to Sam Haggerty. The Mariners didn’t score against him until Luis Torrens hit a homer in the fifth.
Detmers avoid further damage, even though he allowed hits to four of the next nine batters he faced. He struck out leadoff hitter Adam Frazier to escape the fifth, got a double play to get out of the sixth and struck out Haggerty to finish the seventh.
Manager Phil Nevin allowed Detmers some leeway after he’d given up a pair of hits in the seventh, and he responded by whiffing Haggerty on his 106th pitch of the game.
Nevin could take the chance because his offense actually provided a rare cushion.
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The Angels scored two in the third, on a Taylor Ward RBI double and Max Stassi’s run-scoring single.
In the fourth, Moniak hit his second homer in the past three days, driving a fastball over the middle of the plate over the right field fence.
Moniak had hit just one homer in the first 47 games of his career, with the Philadelphia Phillies, who made him the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 draft. The Angels picked him up in the Noah Syndergaard trade earlier this week.
Moniak’s homer boosted the lead to 3-0, and then two innings later David Fletcher hit a two-run homer to give the Angels a 5-1 lead.
It was Fletcher’s second homer in the week since he’s been back from a two-month stay on the injured list rehabbing from hip surgery.
More to come on this story.