TEMPE, Ariz. (AP)—Jered Weaver and Vladimir Guerrero look as if they are ready for the regular season to start.
Guerrero hit his first spring homer, Weaver was sharp in his second consecutive start and the Los Angeles Angels beat the San Francisco Giants 9-1 Thursday.
Weaver allowed only a solo homer to Eliezer Alfonzo in three innings. He pitched two shutout innings against the Chicago Cubs in his first start.
“Even the ball (Alonzo) hit out of the park was not a bad pitch,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. “We’re seeing the ball come out of his hand as it was midseason last year.”
Guerrero hit a two-run homer off Matt Cain in the first. Gary Matthews Jr. added a two-run double in a three-run third inning off Cain, who allowed five runs and five hits in 2 1-3 innings.
Cain pitched three shutout innings against the Cubs in his only other outing this spring.
“He was a little bit up today,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “But everybody, I thought, was a little bit up today.”
Cain, 7-16 despite a respectable 3.65 ERA last season, said it was no fun pitching to Guerrero, adding he heard someone say that it looked as if Guerrero was jammed inside on the pitch he hit out of the park.
“He’s just so strong,” Cain said. “You can’t bounce it up there to him. I’ve seen him hit one of those.”
Matthews and Erick Aybar had two hits each. The Giants had only three hits.
Notes
Angels RHP John Lackey, who missed the early part of the spring with a sore throwing shoulder, threw in the bullpen Thursday. The Los Angeles ace said he would be able to make four spring starts and be ready by opening day, but Scioscia said four starts would not be enough. “That’s not something were considering,” said Scioscia, who had said five spring starts would be the minimum for one of his pitchers to open the season. “You have to build up stamina. Unless something unforeseen would happen, we would at least want John to be at 100 pitches so that he can pitch deep enough into his first start. That’s going to take a little bit of work.” … Scioscia mentioned that pitchers have hit a ceiling of 90 pitches in spring in the past and managed to work into the sixth inning in their first regular-season start, but added, “That’s not preferable. We’re not really going to consider that right now. John wants to be the lead dog. He wants to be the guy opening day. That’s something that we would have liked to see, too. He understands that 33 or 34 or 35 starts and if you go into the playoffs, 37 good starts is more important than anything we’re going to look back on.”
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