Mike Trout, Albert Pujols back Nick Tropeano for Angels

After a brief offensive drought, Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels are starting to swing the bats a lot better.

Trout and Albert Pujols each hit solo home runs, Shohei Ohtani doubled twice and the visiting Angels beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 8-1, on Thursday.

“We pressured them all afternoon,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. “You get 15 chances with guys in scoring position, that’s good. We did a lot of good things out there.”

Nick Tropeano (2-3) pitched a career-high 7 1⁄3 innings to snap a five-start winless streak.

“Trope did an unbelievable job,” Trout said. “It was a fun day for us.”

Ohtani also walked twice and scored two runs. Martin Maldonado had two hits and three RBIs.

The Angels scored more than three runs for the third time in their past 12 and posted their biggest output since an 8-0 win at Colorado on May 9.

Tropeano (West Islip) allowed one run and four hits, walked a season-low one and struck out six.

“Today I was getting that first-pitch strike and putting them away when I had to with runners in scoring position,” Tropeano said.

Trout’s 15th home run was a leadoff drive in the fifth that bounced off the top of the leftfield wall and went out. It came off Marco Estrada (2-5), who lost his fourth straight decision.

The Angels are 16-5 on the road, the best record in the major leagues.

Astros 8, Indians 2: Charlie Morton remained unbeaten this season with six solid innings, and Alex Bregman and Jake Marisnick hit three-run homers for visiting Houston.

Morton (7-0) allowed two runs and five hits while extending his career-best winning streak to 10 games. The righthander, who moved into a tie for the AL lead in wins, hasn’t lost since Sept. 9, 2017 against Oakland. He walked three and struck out five.

Orioles 9, White Sox 3: In Chicago, Dylan Bundy struck out a career-high 14 and pitched a two-hitter for his second complete game in the majors for Baltimore.

Adam Jones and Trey Mancini hit solo home runs as the Orioles took a 9-0 lead after three innings. Jones and Manny Machado each had three hits, and Chance Sisco drove in three runs for the last-place Orioles, who won for just the third time in nine games and improved to 6-21 on the road.

Jose Rondon hit a three-run homer with two outs in the fourth for the first hit off Bundy. It was Rondon’s second career homer and second in two days.

Bundy (3-6) had been roughed up in losing four of five previous starts, but sparkled once again in an afternoon contest. The 25-year-old righthander improved to 2-1 with 1.32 ERA in five day games.

Reds 5, Pirates 4: Eugenio Suarez hit a grand slam off Ivan Nova — who dropped his sixth straight start against host Cincinnati — and Jesse Winker added a solo shot for the Reds.

Luis Castillo (4-4) gave up four hits in six innings, including a two-run homer by David Freese. Castillo has allowed two earned runs or less in each of his last five starts.

A’s 4, Mariners 3: Stephen Piscotty and the A’s tagged Felix Hernandez early, and host Oakland ended Seattle’s five-game winning streak.

The A’s helped themselves by turning a team record-tying five groundball double plays, and stopped a five-game home skid.

The A’s scored four times in the first inning, two on Piscotty’s double off Hernandez (5-4). Hernandez settled down and retired 16 of the last 17 batters he faced in going six innings. Dustin Fowler had an RBI single in the first inning.

Castillo banned 80 games

Chicago White Sox catcher Welington Castillo was suspended for 80 games by Major League Baseball following a positive test for a performance-enhancing substance.

The commissioner’s office cited use of EPO. Erythropoietin is a hormone that stimulates the red-blood cell production and often turns up in test results for cyclists.

Castillo, 31, apologized in a statement through the players’ union, saying he has “let many people down.” He pointed to an “extremely poor decision that I, and I alone, made. I take full responsibility for my conduct.”

MLB panel says balls have extra lift

Baseballs really have been getting extra lift since 2015, and it’s not from the exaggerated uppercuts batters are taking, according to a 10-person committee of researchers hired by the commissioner’s office.

“The aerodynamic properties of the ball have changed, allowing it to carry farther,” said committee chairman Alan Nathan, professor emeritus of physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

But the panel, which includes professors specializing in physics, mechanical engineering, statistics and mathematics, struck out trying to pinpoint the cause.

The committee’s 84-page report was released Thursday by Major League Baseball. There was no evidence of meaningful change in the bounciness of the balls, formally called coefficient of restitution (COR), or alteration in batters’ swings, such as uppercutting.

As for what caused of the change in aerodynamic properties, it remains baseball’s great mystery, the sport’s equivalent of the search for the Loch Ness Monster.