ATLANTA (AP) — Austin Riley had a homer and two singles, Kyle Wright won his 12th game to take the NL lead, and the Atlanta Braves kept rolling with a 7-2 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday night.
Riley singled in the first, singled and scored in the third and hit a two-run homer in the fourth off Austin Warren to make it 7-1. Riley, an NL All-Star reserve earlier this week, has a 15-game hitting streak and is batting .439 over his last 20 games.
The defending World Series champion Braves, who moved one-half game behind the New York Mets for the lead in the NL East, are 35-11 since June 1 — the best record in the majors over that span. They are 19-6 at home during the stretch and have outscored opponents 131-78 in those 25 games.
Shohei Ohtani, a two-way All-Star and the 2021 AL MVP, connected with a solo shot off Wright in the fifth, a liner that left his bat at 110 mph, cleared the right-field wall and trimmed the lead to 7-2. The homer was Ohtani’s 20th.
Wright (12-4) has won five straight decisions over a six-start stretch and moved one victory shy of Houston’s Justin Verlander for the major league lead. Wright gave up two runs and seven hits with no walks and eight strikeouts in six innings.
Riley’s homer was his 28th. Atlanta went deep three times on Friday and has 150 homers, most in the NL.
Angels starter Patrick Sandoval (3-6) gave up five runs and eight hits in three innings. He dropped to 0-5 with a 4.95 ERA in his last nine starts.
The Angels have lost 14 of 16 and are a season-worst 16 games under .500.
Atlanta, which improved to 24-9 against left-handed starters, leads the majors with a 43-7 record when scoring first.
The Braves led 2-0 in the first on Dansby Swanson’s single and Travis d’Arnaud’s RBI force out, and 5-0 in the third on Marcell Ozuna’s single and Michael Harris II’s two-run single.
Wright stranded a runner at third in the second and runners at first and second in the third before Kurt Suzuki put Los Angeles on the board with an RBI single that made it 5-1 in the fourth.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Angels: Slugger Mike Trout had a cortisone shot in his back on Thursday and is going through his progressions and a core stability program, but head athletic trainer Mike Frostad said the three-time AL MVP will not come off the injured list in the next couple of days. Trout is on the IL with left rib inflammation. He’s also had back spasms. ... Los Angeles RHP Michael Lorenzen (shoulder strain) was scratched from his rehab start in Double-A and will restart a throwing program in the next couple of days.
Braves: LF Adam Duvall left the game before the top of the third with left wrist soreness. Guillermo Heredia took his place.
TOSSED
Angels interim manager Phil Nevin was ejected in the top of the fifth by home plate umpire Alan Porter. Coming out of the dugout after Ohtani homered to argue that Riley should’ve been called out on a check swing one pitch before he homered, Nevin pointed in frustration at first-base umpire John Bacon for not calling Riley out.
LOOKING BACK
Ohtani took the loss on Friday but he joined Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan as the only pitchers in Angels history to post 10 or more strikeouts in five consecutive starts. Ryan had a team record seven-game streak in 1977 and a six-game streak spanning 1972-73.
NICE GLOVE
Los Angeles RF Dillon Thomas ran to his right and stretched out to make a diving catch in the third that robbed Heredia of a hit and likely saved a run with a runner at second.
CAPACITY CROWD
The Braves announced an attendance of 42,827, the fifth-largest crowd since Truist Park opened in 2017 and the 26th sellout of the season.
UP NEXT
Braves RHP Ian Anderson (8-5, 4.79) will face LHP Reid Detmers (1-4, 5.60 ERA) as the teams conclude a three-game series Sunday.
___
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
