Jo Adell, Kevin Pillar help the Angels roll past the Royals

Jo Adell hit a three-run homer and Kevin Pillar had three hits and three RBIs in the Angels’ 9-3 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Saturday night.

Logan O’Hoppe had a two-run double during a four-run seventh for the Angels, who won for only the sixth time in 22 games.

“We put some good at-bats together in some situations where we certainly needed it,� Angels manager Ron Washington said. “We just want to learn how to sustain it, and if they can sustain it, we can become a very consistent team because we’ve got some kids out there that are growing.�

Tyler Anderson (3-4) yielded three runs and seven hits over 6 2/3 effective innings for the Angels, ending his five-start winless skid. The left-hander retired 12 straight at one point.

“It’s good (to get a victory), but it’s a team game, and we’re doing a good job staying in a lot of these games,� Anderson said.

Salvador Pérez had an early RBI double for the Royals, whose three-game winning streak ended.

Cole Ragans (2-3) gave up eight hits and seven runs over 6 1/3 innings for Kansas City, recording a season-low three strikeouts in his first loss in four starts.

“I think his delivery looked a little bit out of whack, and I think it affected his command,� Kansas City manager Matt Quatraro said. “His stuff was good. He got into a groove there after the third and kept us in the game. We felt good that he had plenty of pitches (left), but he just didn’t execute as well as he would have liked there in the seventh.�

Bobby Witt Jr. singled, stole second and scored on Pérez’s double down the left-field line in the first, but Pillar led off the Angels’ second with a triple when MJ Melendez misplayed his drive to left.

Adell connected two batters later with a 419-foot shot. The long-hyped prospect could be finding a groove in the majors after a half-decade of false starts, hitting three homers in his last four games and seven this season.

“It all goes back to my decisions in the box and what I swing at,� Adell said.

Cole Tucker, Taylor Ward and Pillar then strung together consecutive singles in the third, and Ward scored on a wild pitch to put the Angels up 5-1.

“Obviously not the best,� Ragans said of his start. “Made some mistakes. Felt like a few times I made some good pitches (and) they hit them hard. A few times, left some pitches over the plate. Fell behind quite a bit, I felt like. Yeah, just not the best.�

After Witt singled home Maikel Garcia in the sixth, the Royals chased Anderson with Kyle Isbel’s soft RBI single in the seventh. Angels reliever Adam Cimber escaped a tight jam for the second straight night, giving up no runs for the 15th time in his last 16 appearances.

“Cimber is the man,� Anderson said. “We all love him. If there’s nobody on, if there’s people on, we just like it when he’s in the game.�

Pillar then dropped a bases-loaded, two-out single inside the line in right field in the seventh off reliever Nick Anderson, and O’Hoppe followed with a double to left.

Pillar was designated for assignment by the White Sox last month, and he made his Angels debut May 1, shortly after Mike Trout’s knee injury. The veteran is off to a solid start back in his native Los Angeles area, hitting two homers and driving in six runs in a win at Pittsburgh earlier this week.

UP NEXT

Kansas City’s Seth Lugo (5-1, 1.92 ERA) goes for his sixth victory in his last eight starts when the takes the mound in the series finale against the Angels’ Patrick Sandoval (2-5, 4.85 ERA), the beneficiary of Pillar’s six-RBI game in Pittsburgh.