Sports

Brandon Drury continues big week in Angels’ blowout victory against A’s

By Chriss Hughes
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ANAHEIM — A few days before Brandon Drury continued his offensive explosion in the Angels’ 11-3 victory over the Oakland A’s on Wednesday night, he wasn’t feeling so great about himself.

Drury stood on the field during a pregame ceremony on Sunday and accepted his 2022 Silver Slugger Award, which he’d earned as the best-hitting utility player in the National League.

At the time, Drury’s 2023 batting average stood at .182, so he quipped to Manager Phil Nevin that he didn’t deserve the hardware.

Things have taken a dramatic turn since then.

Drury homered, doubled and drove in three runs on Wednesday night. Over his past three games, he is 6 for 13 with three homers. He lifted his OPS from .477 to .730. He has hit four homers this season.

“Love the way he’s swinging the bat right now,” Nevin said. “Driving with authority, going out there with a purpose. It’s good to see.”

In the relative blink of an eye, Drury has gone from a horrible start to exactly what the Angels expected. He has a career .734 OPS. Last season was the best year of his career, with 28 homers and an .813 OPS, good for his first Silver Slugger.

“Baseball’s a crazy game,” Drury said. “You start thinking a little bit too much and trying a little bit too hard. So it’s one of those games where you just gotta keep going because you never know. You take that one swing or see that one pitch and you remember, ‘That’s it. That’s what it was.’ For 60-70 at-bats, I was in there just grinding as much as I can just to get that feel back.”

Drury said the one at-bat that told him it was clicking came in the second inning on Monday night. He got a changeup from Oakland left-hander Ken Waldichuk and hit it over the fence in left-center.

“It’s a swing that I had in the past where I was out front, and able to stay through it a little bit, which I hadn’t had the whole year,” Drury said. “So that kind of brought me back a little bit to the feeling of just kind of being myself. I got a little bit lost in there trying to do so many different things at once. Now I’m just trying to keep it simple. There’s still room for improvement. I’ve been having good at-bats, but there’s also been some bad ones too. So gotta keep going.”

On Wednesday night, Drury’s second-inning double drove in the Angels’ first run of the game against right-hander Luis Medina, who was making his major league debut. Matt Thaiss and Zach Neto followed with doubles as part of a five-run inning.

Neto’s double was significant because he took a first-pitch swing without his distinctive, exaggerated leg kick. Normally he only abandons the leg kick when he has two strikes. Nevin said that was an adjustment specific to Medina, who was getting the ball to the plate so quickly out of the stretch that Neto would not have had time to get his leg down.

The Angels then padded their lead on Hunter Renfroe’s team-leading seventh homer of the season, in the third, and Drury’s two-run shot in the fifth. Shohei Ohtani, who had been in a week-long slump, hit a two-run homer in the eighth.

The beneficiary of the offensive explosion was Patrick Sandoval, who gave up two earned runs in seven innings. He is the first Angels starter other than Shohei Ohtani to make it through the seventh this season.

Sandoval bounced back nicely from allowing five runs in his last start, a loss in New York. He walked a career-high six in that game, and he didn’t walk any this time.

“Never want to walk anyone,” Sandoval said. “So it’s cool. Hopefully, I can keep this rolling on to the next one.”

Chase Silseth, who was just promoted from Triple-A earlier in the day, worked the final two innings as the Angels finished off their first victory by more than two runs since April 8.

Sandoval believes the Angels pitchers can have a cushion often with the way the lineup could produce.

“It’s awesome,” Sandoval said. “We rake, one to nine. We are nasty. The guys are getting hot. It’s going to be fun.”

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Chriss Hughes
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