HOUSTON — Everything good that happened during the Angels’ 3-0 victory over the Houston Astros on Sunday seemed much less significant in an instant.
The entire direction of the day changed the moment that Taylor Ward crashed into the left-field fence at Daikin Park, suffering injuries that resulted in him being carted off the field and into an ambulance.
Interim manager Ray Montgomery said he believed that Ward’s eye was OK, although there was no definitive word on his condition.
“I think he’s just getting re-evaluated and maybe going to the hospital to get some stitches,” Montgomery said. “I’m hoping he’s fine.”
The right side of Ward’s head hit the metal out-of-town scoreboard, which contains a grid of small windows with hanging numbers. He was bleeding enough that as soon as he got up he walked toward to the Angels bullpen for a towel to put on his face.
Angels right fielder Jo Adell, who was injured crashing into the same fence when playing left field in 2021, said the ballpark design is unsafe.
“He’s doing what he’s supposed to do,” Adell said. “He’s being aggressive on a play. At the bottom line, and I’ve talked about this before, but there should be no out-of-town metal scoreboard anywhere on the baseball field. It’s the big leagues. This (expletive) is ridiculous. A guy goes back to make a play, and he’s got to worry about a metal fence. That’s crazy. So that’s my honest opinion about it. He did everything he could to make a play, and he gets beat up by something that’s beyond controllable.
“I pulled an oblique on it. I hit my head. I missed a month and a half of the season. At what point is it just not acceptable anymore? I don’t know. In my opinion.”
It was another tough break for Ward, who missed the last two months of the 2023 season after he was hit in the face by a fastball. In 2022, he hurt his shoulder crashing into the right field fence.
This injury comes entering the final month of a season in which Ward has already hit a career-high 30 homers and driven in 94 runs.
Ward’s injury cast a shadow over what was an otherwise very positive day for the Angels on the field.
Starter José Soriano pitched the best game of his career, holding the Astros to one hit in seven innings.
Mike Trout had two doubles, including a 404-foot blast off the wall in left center. Trout’s home run drought extended to 20 games, his longest in 10 years.
“The last two days, even yesterday, being able to recognize pitches, that’s the biggest thing,” Trout said. “When I turn way in and lose sight of the ball, that’s when I get in trouble.”
Oswald Peraza hit a homer against Astros ace Hunter Brown to put the Angels on the board in the fifth inning of the pitchers’ duel. Peraza had driven in two runs to snap a tie in the ninth inning of Saturday’s victory.
“The guy’s been working since the day he got here,” Montgomery said. “And the idea of getting him in there and getting him some ABs and then seeing that was really nice to see. Obviously, it was a first pitch slider, and he drove it out to right center field, off a pretty good arm.”
The Angels (64-72) won consecutive games for the first time since they swept the Dodgers from Aug. 11-13. They also exceeded last season’s victory total on the final day of August.
Soriano was in an early jam, issuing a walk and giving up a single to the first two batters of the game. He got the next three hitters, two with strikeouts, and then did not allow another hit.
“Really, really good,” Montgomery said. “The first two innings, he had a couple of deep counts, he had some 3-0 counts on a few guys. It was kind of out of character for him there. But he regrouped and came back in all those counts and really dialed it in after that. It was good.”
Soriano has now had back-to-back scoreless outings, including a 5 ⅔-inning outing on Monday against the Texas Rangers. It’s the first time in his two seasons as a starter that he’s pitched consecutive games without allowing a run.
It was also his third scoreless outing in the last four starts. Two of them have been against first-place teams: the Dodgers and Astros.
When Soriano threw his last pitch the Angels had a 1-0 lead, but they added some insurance with two runs in the eighth, sparked by Trout’s double.
It was the first time since Aug. 20 that Trout had two hits in a game and the first time since July 9 that he had two extra-base hits in a game.
“I’m just trusting what I’m doing in the cage,” Trout said. “The cage work is great. Feels like myself just trying to translate into the game.”
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