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Napoli's grand slam propels Angels past Indians

Apr 9, 2008 - 11:06 PM ANAHEIM, California (Ticker) -- Mike Napoli and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim left little to doubt in their latest game with the Cleveland Indians.

Napoli belted his first career grand slam Wednesday as the Angels cruised past the Indians, 9-5, in the rubber game of a three-game series.

Garret Anderson and Casey Kotchman hit solo homers and Dustin Moseley pitched six solid innings for Anaheim.

"It was a good all-around effort today," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "Our pitching held a good offensive club to five runs when the ball was carrying out today."

The matinee contest was much different than the series' first two games, as the bullpens for both teams blew leads over the past two days.

"Good to take two games from them and win the series," Napoli said. "Hope we can keep it going when we head to Seattle this weekend."

Torii Hunter hit a game-winning grand slam off Cleveland closer Joe Borowski in the ninth inning Monday, leading the Angels to a 6-4 victory. The Indians responded the next day when Travis Hafner hit a two-run homer off emergency closer Justin Speier with two outs in the ninth inning for a 4-3 triumph.

But Anaheim put this one away early, jumping to a 6-0 lead after three innings.

"Our early runs helped me go out there and settle down and just be aggressive with their hitters," Moseley said. "It's always good for any pitcher to get run support early, and today the offense helped out."

Hunter singled before Kotchman drew a walk to put men on first and second with one out in the second. After Maicer Izturis singled to load the bases, Napoli belted Paul Byrd's 1-0 fastball into the second row of seats in left to give Anaheim a 4-0 lead.

"I was in a good hitting situation with the bases loaded, and I was just trying to drive something into the outfield, but I got a pitch up in the zone and hit it hard," Napoli said.

It was Napoli's third homer of the season, and gave him a career-high four RBI in one game.

One inning later, the Angels caused further damage to Byrd when Anderson hammered a pitch over the right field wall. Kotchman homered two batters later to make it 6-0.

"It was just one of those days where you know the ball was going to be flying out of the park, and it did," Scioscia said.

Byrd (0-2) was tagged for six runs, five hits and two walks in three innings to see his ERA balloon to 11.05 in two outings.

The six runs were enough for Moseley (1-1), who allowed four runs, nine hits and a walk while striking out five.

"(Moseley) gave us a good five innings, which is what we needed from him today," Napoli said.

The Indians cut the deficit to 6-4 in the sixth courtesy of a solo homer by Jhonny Peralta, an RBI double by Casey Blake and a two-run homer by Kelly Shoppach.

"Our guys kept fighting today, but we just came up on the losing end of it today," Indians manager Eric Wedge said. "We had a better approach today at the plate and that's something we want to carry into the weekend."

Vladimir Guerrero hammered a three-run homer off Cleveland reliever Jensen Lewis to make it 9-4 in the seventh. It was Guerrero's second blast of 2008 and left the eight-time All-Star 33 homers shy of 400 for his career.