Boston, MA (Sports Network) – Playing on fewer than 11 hours rest, the Angels banged out 18 hits Thursday for an 11-0 rout of John Lackey and the Boston Red Sox.
Joel Pineiro (1-0) pitched 5 2/3 in his second start of the season and combined with Rich Thompson and Francisco Rodriguez on the team’s third shutout of the season.
Erick Aybar had four hits, an RBI and two runs scored; Mark Trumbo belted a two-run homer; and Bobby Abreu drove in three runs for the Angels, who won the last two games to earn a split in the four-game series.
Ex-Angel John Lackey entered the game 4-0 against his former team, but took the loss in four-plus shaky innings. Lackey (2-4) surrendered eight runs, 10 hits and three walks and was yanked after giving up Trumbo’s homer in the fifth.
“It was frustrating,” said Lackey, who pitched the first eight years of his career for the Angels. “I had some guys with two strikes and couldn’t put people away.”
The teams took the field just 10 hours and 50 minutes after the Angels won the third game of the series at 2:45 a.m. Thursday morning (it was delayed more than 2 1/2 hours by rain and went 13 innings).
The Red Sox struggled to solve Pineiro, going without a hit until the fourth inning.
Meanwhile, the Angels had little trouble against Lackey, scoring three runs in each inning between the third and fifth. Alberto Callaspo’s two-run double was the big blow in the three-run third, which gave the Angels all the runs they would need.
Howard Kendrick, Abreu and Torii Hunter delivered two-out RBI singles in the fourth before Trumbo’s sixth homer of the season — he smacked a pitch over the Green Monster in left — knocked Lackey out in the fifth.
Peter Bourjos doubled off reliever Scott Atchison and scored later on Aybar’s single to make it 9-0. Abreu hit a two-run double off Atchison in the seventh for the final runs.
The Angels went 7-for-18 with runners in scoring position, leaving 10 guys on base. Boston was 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and stranded seven.
Game Notes
The Angels went 4-3 on a seven-game road trip and are headed back home for a pair of three-game series against the Indians and White Sox…Pineiro opened the year on the disabled list with a shoulder injury…The Red Sox are 3-4 on an 11-game homestand that ends with four games against the Twins. They are still 17-4 in their last 21 games against the Angels, including a four-game sweep in Anaheim last month.