Los Angeles Angels designated hitter Shohei Ohtani gets around on a Oakland A’s starter Frankie Montas top of the first inning pitch for a home run at the Oakland Coliseum on Sun May 15, 2022

By Jerry Fetielberg

The Los Angeles Angels Shohei Ohtani connected for the second game in a row for a home run at the Oakland Coliseum to help pace the Angels past the Oakland A’s 4-1 on Sunday afternoon as the Angels took three out of four games in the series.

Ohtani who hit his 100th career homer on Saturday’s second game of a doubleheader becoming the third Japanese born player to accomplish such a record knocked out his eighth home run of the season a real rip 425 feet into the right field Coliseum stands.

Angels manager Joe Maddon was impressed by the length of the Ohtani blast and said not too many people can hit a ball off A’s starter Frankie Montas like that, “That had some great hang time to it,” Maddon said. “Not many people hit Montas but I don’t know, that was 97 mph elevated and he got all of it. When he’s starting to get to that, heads up.”

Angels starter Patrick Sandoval contributed big in his performance getting into the sixth inning with one out surrendering four hits and just one earned run. Sandoval in his last two outings got touched up but against the A’s line up on Sunday he had his control and helped the Angels go 11 games over the .500 mark in the AL West.

Sandoval also improved his ERA dropping it to 1.91 he walked four batters but was able to get out of some close calls leaving runs aboard after the first three innings. Sandoval cut it really close leaving runners in scoring position four different times.

Ohtani was walked intentionally to the sound of the Coliseum crowd booing many of who were wearing Angels red jerseys this coming after Montas had got two out and gave up a top of third inning lead off triple to leadoff hitter Taylor Ward.

The A’s were 0-11 while leaving men on second base, the A’s ended Sandoval’s shutout in the bottom of the third inning when A’s catcher Sean Murphy hit into a ground out RBI. Montas had his pitches working despite the loss going six innings giving up four hits and two earned runs, walking one and striking out 12 Angels batters.

The Minnesota Twins (20-15) are a team that have presence and they come to the Coliseum to open a three game series on Monday night the Twins will be starting right hander Chris Archer (0-1 ERA 4.43) going up against the A’s lefthander Zach Louge (2-1 ERA 1.35) a 6:40 pm PDT first pitch.