Angels chase Hamels, beat Rangers’ bullpen

ARLINGTON — Trailing by three while facing one of the game’s best pitchers, the Angels battled back against Cole Hamels and the Rangers’ bullpen on Sunday, capturing a 9-6 victory at Globe Life Park that prevented them from being swept.

The Rangers used a three-run fourth inning to take a 4-1 lead off Angels starter Garrett Richards, but his offense scored three runs of its own in the fifth and took the lead on Yunel Escobar’s sacrifice fly in the sixth.

Hamels (five innings) and Richards (four) each had their shortest starts of the season, leaving it up to the bullpens to decide the outcome.

The Rangers got back-to-back two-out singles off Fernando Salas in the seventh, but the veteran reliever struck out Ian Desmond to keep the Angels’ one-run lead intact. The Angels then tacked on three runs in the eighth, getting a solo homer from Geovany Soto, an RBI single from Kole Calhoun and a run-scoring double off the right-field wall by Mike Trout.

MOMENTS THAT MATTEREDGame of Cron: With the bases loaded, two outs and the Angels trailing by two against a tiring Hamels in the fifth, C.J. Cron came up big, lining a two-out, two-run single to right field to tie the game. Cron entered Tuesday with a .153/.242/.220 slash line, but he has reached base in 10 of his last 17 plate appearances. The Angels need his bat, especially with Trout and Albert Pujols going a combined 6-for-25 in the weekend series.

A time to gain, a Tom to lose: Tom Wilhelmsen had a shaky first month with the Rangers and got off to an inauspicious start to May, shouldering the loss …

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