April 5, 2017

The Angels knocked off the A’s 5-0 on Wednesday night in Oakland, but they have more injury concerns with starting pitcher Garrett Richards.

Richards was sharp in his 4 2/3 innings of work, giving up just three hits while striking out four.  However, he felt some cramping in his biceps, causing him to leave the game.  Richards insisted that the move was nothing more than precautionary.

“Nothing serious. My arm feels good. I felt good tonight, elbow feels fine, shoulder feels fine,” he said. “It was just kind of a long inning and it just kind of stiffened up a little bit. There’s no red flags or anything, just something that flared up. … Everything kind of moves on as planned.”

Richards underwent tests after the game, which revealed no major issue.  He will be re-evaluated when the team returns to Southern California.

The Halos got the offense going in the 2nd inning in this one.  Andrelton Simmons started things off with an RBI single, while Danny Espinosa tacked on a 2-run single after that.

In the 5th inning, Mike Trout and Albert Pujols had back-to-back RBI singles of their own, and that was all the offense the Lakers needed.

Jose Alvarez, J.C. Ramirez, and Yusmeiro Petit shutdown the Athletics the rest of the way to give the Halos their 2nd victory of the season.  Ramirez picked up the victory.

Game 4 of the series will be Thursday afternoon.  Tyler Skaggs will be going for the Angels, while the A’s will give the ball to Andrew Triggs.