It didn’t take A’s closer Liam Hendriks long to record his first blown save this season — or to get over it. After allowing a game-tying homer in the ninth inning of Friday’s opener, Hendriks said he rewatched the outing and “realized I was a lot further ahead” than he’d felt on the mound.
“It actually showed me I had life to the ball, my breaking ball was coming out good,” Hendriks said Sunday afternoon. “I was like, ‘No, stuff’s good. Let’s get out of my own head.’ … That little bit of confidence was able to help me out today for sure.”
Hendriks rebounded Sunday with a four-out save in the A’s 6-4 win over the Angels, entering in the eighth with a runner on and retiring Andrelton Simmons on one pitch. He returned for a 1-2-3 ninth that included retiring Jason Castro, who’d homered off him Friday, on a grounder to first.
“We were able to kind of redeem ourselves a little bit from that one,” Hendriks said.
“It was nice to get him back out there,” manager Bob Melvin said. “It looked like he was sharper today and had a little better velocity, too.”
Hendriks saved a win Sunday for reliever Yusmeiro Petit, who recorded three critical outs in the fifth inning. Entering with two on and nobody out in a 5-3 game, Petit allowed a sacrifice fly to Mike Trout and retired the next two batters to preserve the lead.
“Petit was the story again,” Melvin said. “That’s the biggest momentum change of the game. … Whether you pitch (Petit) in the fourth, whether you pitch him in the seventh, wherever you pitch him, he always gets the toughest role, and he did again today and it was a game-saver.”
Trout batted again in the seventh with a man on and struck out swinging at a full-count curveball from Joakim Soria. Melvin said it “was a key at-bat to the game as well.”
On Fiers: A’s right-hander Mike Fiers allowed back-to-back singles to open three of the first five innings. Fiers escaped unscathed in the first but paid in the third when Trout hit his 3-0 fastball for a three-run homer. Fiers departed two batters into the fifth, allowing four runs on seven hits.
“He had some really good quick innings, and then it was three guys he was having a tough time with: (Brian) Goodwin, (David) Fletcher and Trout,” Melvin said. “So a little bit hit-and-miss with him today. … I thought there were innings that he threw the ball with good command but others he had a little trouble.”
Fiers threw 64 pitches before departing. He became the first pitcher to give up a home run to Trout on a 3-0 count, according to the Angels.
Matt Kawahara covers the A’s for The San Francisco Chronicle.
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