crashed into the left-field fence<\/a> at Daikin Park, suffering injuries that resulted in him being carted off the field and into an ambulance.<\/p>\nInterim manager Ray Montgomery said he believed that Ward\u2019s eye was OK, although there was no definitive word on his condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s just getting re-evaluated and maybe going to the hospital to get some stitches,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cI\u2019m hoping he\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
The right side of Ward\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s doing what he\u2019s supposed to do,\u201d Adell said. \u201cHe\u2019s being aggressive on a play. At the bottom line, and I\u2019ve talked about this before, but there should be no out-of-town metal scoreboard anywhere on the baseball field. It\u2019s the big leagues. This (expletive) is ridiculous. A guy goes back to make a play, and he\u2019s got to worry about a metal fence. That\u2019s crazy. So that\u2019s my honest opinion about it. He did everything he could to make a play, and he gets beat up by something that\u2019s beyond controllable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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\u2019t know. In my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Ward\u2019s injury cast a shadow over what was an otherwise very positive day for the Angels on the field.<\/p>\n
Starter Jos\u00e9 Soriano pitched the best game of his career, holding the Astros to one hit in seven innings.<\/p>\n
Mike Trout had two doubles, including a 404-foot blast off the wall in left center. Trout\u2019s home run drought extended to 20 games, his longest in 10 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last two days, even yesterday, being able to recognize pitches, that\u2019s the biggest thing,\u201d Trout said. \u201cWhen I turn way in and lose sight of the ball, that\u2019s when I get in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oswald Peraza hit a homer against Astros ace Hunter Brown to put the Angels on the board in the fifth inning of the pitchers\u2019 duel. Peraza had driven in two runs to snap a tie in the ninth inning of Saturday\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guy\u2019s been working since the day he got here,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cAnd 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s victory total on the final day of August.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally, really good,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soriano has now had back-to-back scoreless outings, including a 5 \u2154-inning outing on Monday against the Texas Rangers. It\u2019s the first time in his two seasons as a starter that he\u2019s pitched consecutive games without allowing a run.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s double.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just trusting what I\u2019m doing in the cage,\u201d Trout said. \u201cThe cage work is great. Feels like myself just trying to translate into the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: August 31, 2025 at 2:17 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2014 Everything good that happened during the Angels\u2019 3-0 victory over the Houston Astros on Sunday seemed…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":190285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[4345,1285,1266,62,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-190284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-houston","9":"tag-los-angeles-angels","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115126056096991289","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}