Brandon Drury homered twice and finished with five RBIs, rookie Nolan Schanuel stretched his on-base streak to 24 games and the Los Angeles Angels beat the Tampa Bay Rays 8-3 in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Wednesday night.
Drury, who went 3-for-5, drove in half of Los Angeles' runs through the first two innings as the Angels (69-83) built a quick 6-0 lead that was enough to snap their six-game losing streak.
Schanuel was 1-for-2 with three runs. He walked twice, was hit by a pitch and has now reached base in every game since his Aug. 18 major league debut.
Zach Neto and Michael Stefanic each added two hits for Los Angeles.
Andrew Wantz (2-0) earned the win with two innings of relief behind starter Reid Detmers, who tossed 96 pitches and allowed just one unearned run in four innings.
For Tampa Bay (93-60), Manuel Margot went 3-for-4, doubled and scored. Isaac Paredes was 2-for-5 with a double and an RBI, and Yandy Diaz doubled in two runs.
The Rays were just 2-for-16 with runners in scoring position.
Tampa Bay starter Aaron Civale (7-4) pitched three innings and recorded seven strikeouts. However, he surrendered six runs on seven hits.
Four Rays pitchers combined for 19 strikeouts, matching a club record for a nine-inning game that had previously been set on July 27, 2020, against the Atlanta Braves.
Winless since beating the Seattle Mariners 8-5 on Sept. 11, the Angels saw Schanuel and Neto open the game with singles before Schanuel scored on Jared Walsh's base hit and Neto came home on Logan O'Hoppe's fielder's choice for a 2-0 lead.
The visitors padded their lead in the second when they scored four times with two outs.
Neto was in the thick of it again, ripping a run-scoring double to left. Drury then broke the game open by lifting a 3-0 cutter to left for a three-run homer and a 6-0 lead.
An inning-opening fielding error by third baseman Eduardo Escobar allowed Paredes to drive in an unearned run with a two-out single off Detmers in the third.
Drury popped his 23rd homer of the season in the sixth for an 8-1 advantage, but the Rays' Diaz answered with a two-run double to shallow right in the home half of the frame.
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