PHOENIX — They opened the roof in Chase Field just before the first pitch Friday night, allowing the warmth of a 98-degree evening to fill the stadium and the Angels to hearken back to March, when they were the scourge of the Valley of the Sun.
Remember the Terrors of Tempe, the offensive juggernaut that rolled through spring training with a major league-best 26-8 record, a .315 batting average, a .390 on-base percentage, and scored an average of 7.4 runs a game?
Maybe it was the hot, dry Arizona air, but the team that blew out the Diamondbacks, 12-3, on Friday night, extending its win streak to three games and improving to a major league-best 13-4 in interleague play, looked a lot like those Cactus League crushers.
The Angels scored eight runs in the second inning, the most they've scored in an inning this season, and their dozen runs were a season high, giving Jered Weaver (six innings, three runs, four hits, five strikeouts) more than enough support to improve to 8-3.
The Angels had 11 hits, including Torii Hunter's two-run home run and Maicer Izturis' two-run triple. They drew six walks and were hit by two pitches, giving them an on-base percentage of .404 for the game. They went eight for 20 with runners in scoring position.
"We did a little bit of everything tonight," Manager Mike Scioscia said. "We drove the ball well, we worked counts, we ran the bases well and pressured them. There was one good at-bat after another. That's where we need to be on the offensive side."
Is it any coincidence that the Angels' recent surge -- they've won 10 of their last 13 games and are a half-game out of first place in the American League West -- has come against National League West teams San Diego, San Francisco, Colorado, Arizona and the Dodgers?
"As poorly as we played through some stretches this season, there were some triple-A teams that would have given us a run for our money," Scioscia said.
"But we're playing better baseball now. . . . These leagues, it's not like one is from Venus and one is from Mars. You still have to play good baseball."
Though Friday night's game was one-sided, there was actually a huge momentum swing from the bottom of the first inning to the top of the second, as Weaver pitched out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam by striking out Gerardo Parra and Chris Young to end the first and the Angels erupted in the second.
