ANAHEIM -- The Angels’ offense has gotten off to a strong start this year, as they rank second in the Majors in runs scored behind the Brewers and are tied for Milwaukee for the Major League lead in home runs.

But they’ve mostly done it with the top of the lineup doing the damage, as Taylor Ward and Mike Trout have been red-hot to start the season. Jared Walsh, however, has started to turn it around offensively, while Brandon Marsh is showing signs of snapping out of a recent funk. Walsh and Marsh both homered in a 7-3 loss to the Nationals on Saturday, and Marsh believes if they can both get going, it’ll make the lineup even deeper and more dangerous.

"Walsh, I love watching his swing,” Marsh said. “It's good seeing him get going tonight. He turned on a pretty tough heater, which was a good sign. We just have to keep feeding off each other and keep building off each other."

After a breakout 2021 season that saw him get named an All-Star for the first time in his career, Walsh got out to a bit of a slow start offensively by his standards in ‘22. But he has been heating up of late, and on Saturday he went 2-for-4 with a solo homer. It was Walsh's fifth homer of the year and his third over his last four games. Walsh also has nine RBIs over that stretch.

With his performance, Walsh is now hitting .258/.308/.443 with three doubles and a team-leading 19 RBIs in 27 games this season. Last year, he batted .277/.340/.509 with 29 homers, 34 doubles and 98 RBIs in 144 games.

"He's a little streaky,” Angels manager Joe Maddon said. “He gets cold and he gets hot. He's a gamer, he cares, he works hard. I have so much faith in him to continue to get better down the road here. He's getting that look. He hit a foul ball and that was clocked pretty good. And when he's fighting it off, he's fighting it off the other way. I think he’s going to look like this for a while."

Walsh has started almost exclusively against right-handers this season, which has been part of the club’s strategy, as Walsh’s .994 OPS against right-handers was the second-best mark in the American League last year behind Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s 1.020.

Walsh struggled against lefties last year, batting .170/.208/.357, but he has been making progress this year when given the chance to face left-handed relievers. Walsh has batted a more respectable .273/.304/.364 against southpaws this year, which could get him some starts against left-handed pitching.

“I think he wants it,” Maddon said. “We had some really frank conversations in Spring Training. He’s never complained. It’s the kind of guy who is going to do something about it and he has. So you’ll see him play against lefties, but maybe not against a really nasty lefty. That’ll be a chance to give him a day off.”

Walsh got the Angels on the board with a solo shot off Josiah Gray in the fourth. Two batters later, Marsh hit a two-run homer to bring the Angels within one run. It was Marsh's fourth homer of the year and was a sign he's snapping out of his slump. He went 0-for-17 with 13 strikeouts through the first five games of last week's road trip before going 2-for-4 with a homer on Thursday in Boston.

“I just kind of got away from myself a little bit,” Marsh said. “Just swinging at balls I shouldn't swing at and watching the ones I should. I kind of just went back to the basics. Did some old drills, cleared the mind. And just kind of kept it simple and just tried to do my job and I got a barrel to the ball and got lucky.”

But reliever Elvis Peguero replaced right-hander Michael Lorenzen after 4 2/3 innings and struggled, allowing a two-run homer to Nelson Cruz in the fifth and an RBI double to Maikel Franco to put the Angels down by four runs.

"We crawled back into that thing and I felt good about Peguero coming into the game,” Maddon said. “He gave up the homer in Boston, but his stuff was really good. He just didn't have his good fastball. But I thought things would flip back our way just with the way we've been playing."