OC Register: Andrew Heaney cruises as Angels blow out Blue Jays

[AngelsWin.com]

For as much fun as the Angels have had winning in their last at-bat, they certainly enjoyed doing it the easier way on Friday night.

Andrew Heaney pitched six scoreless innings and Shohei Ohtani and Jared Walsh hit home runs in the Angels’ 7-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in Dunedin, Fla.

“I’m happy that I pitched well enough and the guys obviously are scoring runs, so we can finally have a little bit of a comfortable game today,” Heaney said. “Not the nail biters we’ve been playing.”

The Angels improved to 6-2, matching the best start in franchise history. They had scored the winning run in their last at-bat in their first five victories, but in this one, they scored four runs in the second inning and never looked back.

It was such a good night for the Angels that even a frightening injury turned out to be not so serious.

Dexter Fowler suffered a left knee contusion after going into second awkwardly in the second inning. There was no structural damage to his knee, which was certainly good news after Fowler was in visible pain for several minutes before leaving the field on a cart.

Fowler said that his knee collided with second baseman Marcus Semien’s and his leg briefly went numb, but it felt much better after the game. He said he would be out “hopefully just a few days.”

Manager Joe Maddon said the play also was the “game changer.” Fowler got a good enough jump that he was able to beat the force at second after shortstop Bo Bichette bobbled the ball for a second. That allowed the Angels to score one run, and it extended the inning for Ohtani to loft a three-run double off the fence in right-center, putting the Angels up 4-0.

From there, Heaney was able to cruise through the Angels’ best start of the young season.

Heaney switched to the first base side of the rubber for this game, continuing the tinkering he’s done several times throughout his Angels career.

“I just like to mess with you guys,” Heaney joked when he was first asked about his reason for switching.

Pressed to elaborate, he said it just feels better, for now.

“It’s a comfort zone, but also mechanically kind of keeps me where I need to be,” Heaney said. “It’s been back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And I think there are positives to being on either side. But I think ultimately the positives outweigh on the first base side. There’s a lot of stuff that goes into it, but that’s where I’ll be.”

Heaney escaped a two-on, two-out jam in the first and walked the leadoff man in the second, but then he retired 12 in a row through the fifth inning, striking out five.

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Heaney finished the night with 93 pitches, including 62 fastballs. He second-guessed himself for getting away from his fastball after the first time through the lineup in his previous outing.

Maddon said Heaney’s best outings are when he trusts his fastball.

“His other stuff is good, but the other stuff needs to be parceled out appropriately,” Maddon said. “The (radar gun) number only says up to 94, but the characteristics of the pitch and the jump on it are such that he could throw that on any count, to anybody.”

Certainly, it helped that he had a healthy cushion almost the entire night.

Ohtani padded the lead with a 422-foot homer over the center field fence, his third of the season. Later in the inning, Walsh yanked a two-run homer out to right, his third of the season.

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