WASHINGTON (AP) — Jack Kochanowicz pitched 7 2/3 innings to earn his first major league win, Kevin Pillar hit a three-run double and the Los Angeles Angels beat the Washington Nationals 6-4 on Sunday.
Los Angeles avoided a three-game series sweep in its first visit to Washington since 2017 and went 3-3 on a road trip that began in New York against the Yankees.
The Nationals issued 13 walks, matching their most since the franchise moved to Washington in 2005. The Angels turned four of those into runs to help deny the Nationals their fourth series sweep of the season.
Kochanowicz (1-2) made his third career start and it went considerably better than the two last month, when he gave up a combined 12 runs over seven innings. Recalled from Double-A Rocket City on Saturday, the right-hander retired the first eight Nationals hitters before Nasim Nuñez reached on an infield single.
Kochanowicz breezed through seven innings on 72 pitches before Jacob Young led off the eighth with a homer to left. The rookie was pulled after Luis García Jr.’s two-out RBI single. He allowed two runs, six hits and a walk while striking out two.
The Nationals scored twice in the ninth against Ben Joyce, who got Juan Yepez to ground into a game-ending double play with the bases loaded to end the rally.
The Angels had runners on first and third with none out in the fourth when Jo Adell hit a sharp grounder to third baseman José Tena, who appeared to jam his right hand. After initially holding up, Brandon Drury scampered home on the error, and Tena was forced to leave the game a day after he made his Nationals debut and had the game-winning hit in the 10th inning.
MacKenzie Gore (7-10) then issued a walk before inducing a double-play grounder that scored a run. Gore walked two more batters, and Pillar then ripped a three-run double to left to make it 5-0.
Los Angeles pushed across another run in the seventh when Michael Stefanic worked the last of the Angels’ four walks against Jordan Weems.
Gore allowed five runs — all unearned — in four innings, but walked a career-high six batters and yielded five hits. The left-hander did not work through the fifth for the fourth time in seven starts since July 6.
Washington also allowed 13 walks as a team on Aug. 10, 2008, in a 13-inning loss at Milwaukee.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Nationals: SS CJ Abrams (upper back spasms) was out of the lineup for the third consecutive game.
UP NEXT
Angels: RHP Davis Daniel (1-3, 6.04 ERA) starts Monday as Los Angeles returns home to start a three-game series against Toronto.
Nationals: Washington is off Monday. The Nationals begin a two-game series at Baltimore on Tuesday as RHP Jake Irvin (8-10, 3.76) faces the Orioles for the first time.
