It looked early like the banged-up Angels roster wouldn't matter. Rodriguez and the Los Angeles offense jumped Cantillo for a run in the first and two more in the second, staking the home club to a 3-0 lead through two innings that felt, for a while, like it might hold up.
Cleveland's bats needed time to get going but didn't stop coming. The Guardians finished with 12 hits to the Angels' 3, chipping away with a run in the 5th and another in the 8th before a two-run 9th finally flipped the scoreboard. It's the kind of grinding, spread-the-at-bats win that's defined this stretch for Cleveland, a lineup that piled up 5 hits from Steven Kwan alone in the series' previous game.
The result pushes Cleveland to 5 wins in a row and drops the Angels to 4 straight losses, continuing a lopsided run in this matchup that's gone almost entirely Cleveland's way this season. Los Angeles has now lost the first 3 meetings of this series, with the two sides still on the schedule to see more of each other.
For Rodriguez, the final line stings a little given how sharp his last outing was, but the broader arc of his comeback is still trending the right way. For the Angels, it's another afternoon where a beat-up roster couldn't hang on against a Cleveland team that's playing its best baseball of the summer.