ANAHEIM -- In a season full of impressive performances, rookie Walbert Ureña outdid himself with his best showing of the year against the Twins on Thursday night.
Ureña struck out a career-high nine batters over seven scoreless innings before Wade Meckler delivered a walk-off single to lift the Angels to a 5-4 win in 10 innings at Angel Stadium. Mike Trout also came up big with a game-tying RBI single after the Twins scored in the top of the 10th.
Ureña scattered just four hits without issuing a walk to improve his ERA to 2.74 in 28 outings (26 starts) this season, but was stuck with a no-decision after Ben Joyce gave up a game-tying two-run homer to Walker Jenkins with two outs in the ninth. The 22-year-old has struck out 140 and walked 67 in 144 1/3 innings to make himself a candidate to receive some down-ballot votes for the American League Rookie of the Year Award.
Ureña’s ERA ranks second among all MLB rookies with at least 100 innings pitched this year, as the only rookie starter with a better ERA this year is Cleveland’s Parker Messick with a 2.57 ERA in 178 1/3 frames. Additionally, his 16 starts allowing one or no runs are the most by a pitcher in a season at 22 or younger since Dwight Gooden in 1985.
He had electric stuff against Minnesota, as his four-seamer averaged 100.1 mph, his sinker 98.8 mph and his changeup 92.1 mph. It helped him to generate a whopping 22 swings and misses, including 12 with his changeup, nine with his sinker and one with his four-seamer. His previous high in a start was 18 whiffs.
He also filled up the strike zone, throwing first-pitch strikes to 19 of the 25 batters he faced, with 62 of his 91 pitches landing for strikes. He’s had trouble with walks this season but has been better recently, issuing a combined three free passes over his last four outings.
It was a relatively stress-free outing for Ureña outside of giving up consecutive two-out singles in the first inning. He struck out Emmanuel Rodriguez to get out of the inning and went on to retire the next six batters he faced, including five via strikeouts.
The only other time the Twins had a runner in scoring position against him came in the fifth, when Jenkins singled with one out and reached second on a grounder from Ben Ross. But Ureña got Luke Keaschall to ground out to end the inning and then went out to finish his outing strong by retiring the final eight batters he faced, including getting two strikeouts in the seventh.
He pitched with the lead for most of his outing, as the Angels scored three runs in the opening frame against right-hander Taj Bradley. Fellow rookies Moisés Ballesteros and Denzer Guzman connected on back-to-back RBI singles while Oswald Peraza plated a run with a two-out RBI single.