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Angels ride Joel Pineiro’s arm to 4-0 victory and sweep of Oakland

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Joel Pineiro threw his sixth career shutout Sunday, limiting the Oakland Athletics to four hits while striking out five during his 98-pitch gem to lead the Angels to a 4-0 victory and a three-game sweep of the A’s in Angel Stadium.

The Angels’ second four-hit shutout of the series -- Joe Saunders accomplished the feat Friday night -- moved the Angels to within 2 1/2 games of the first-place Texas Rangers in the American League West.

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Hideki Matsui singled home Torii Hunter, who had doubled, in the second inning for the Angels, and Bobby Abreu followed Howie Kendrick’s sixth-inning single with a two-out, two-run home run off Oakland starter Trevor Cahill to give the Angels a 3-0 lead. Mike Napoli doubled in the eighth and scored on Kendrick’s two-out RBI single to make it 4-0.

Pineiro had an extremely rocky two-start stretch in late April in which he was rocked for 15 earned runs and 21 hits in 9 1/3 innings of losses to the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers.

But in three starts since then, Pineiro has allowed two earned runs and 17 hits in 21 1/3 innings of a loss to the Boston Red Sox, a no-decision against the Tampa Bay Rays and Sunday’s win over the A’s.

The Angels backed Pineiro with three superb defensive plays. Left fielder Michael Ryan made a sliding catch in foul territory of Ryan Sweeney’s first-inning fly ball, shortstop Erick Aybar made a diving, back-hand stop of Kevin Kouzmanoff’s one-hop smash and threw to first for the out in the second inning, and Kendrick, the Angels’ second baseman, fielded Eric Chavez’s fifth-inning grounder up the middle and made an off-balance throw to first for the out.

--Mike DiGiovanna

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