ANAHEIM — Kurt Suzuki ran out of answers a long time ago.
After the Angels’ 3-2, 10-inning loss to the Athletics on Thursday night, Suzuki attempted to describe how they’re going to get out of this slump.
“Obviously we’d like to come up with, you know, all these fancy solutions to how can we do better and all these things, but at the end of the day, it’s get a good pitch to hit and put a good swing on it, and see what happens,” the first-year Angels manager said. “Like I said, we try to keep it simple and and try to go about it that way.”
The solution might not be simple, but the problem is.
The Angels are not getting hits. Period.
They hit some home runs, but when the ball isn’t flying over the fence, they are unable to come up with ways to get runs. In three of the four games in this series their only runs came on homers, including a first-inning, two-run homer by Nolan Schanuel that started and ended the Angels’ scoring on Thursday.
“It’s just trying to get the rhythm going of piling on good at-bat after good at-bat after good at-bat,” Jo Adell said. “We haven’t really had that rhythm. There’s been a good at-bat here and then we’ve struggled to kind of pile them up behind one another and then get that rhythm going. We’re hoping to at some point find what that is. We’ve had it. We know what it is. But it’s just one of those things in baseball that just kind of can slip away from you. We’ve had some bloop singles here where runs have scored and situations where it’s just gotten away from us, so we’re working to get that back.”
It’s been happening for more than a month. Since April 18, the Angels have hit .217, which is the second-worst average in the majors over that stretch. They’ve hit .184 with runners in scoring position, and they’ve averaged 2.9 runs per game.
Not surprisingly, the Angels are 6-24 in those games, dropping to 17-34 for the season.
The offensive problems were mostly responsible for the loss on Thursday, even though there was also one costly defensive mistake.
Second baseman Adam Frazier double-clutched on what would have been an inning-ending double play in the top of the 10th, allowing the A’s to get their automatic runner home with what proved to be the winning run.
In the bottom of the inning, the Angels had a great opportunity to at least tie the score, when Adell led off with a single that sent Vaughn Grissom to third. Any ball to the outfield would have tied the game, but Josh Lowe struck out. Jorge Soler then hit into a double play, ending the game.
Afterward, Suzuki insisted that the energy and the work have been good, despite the poor results.
“They believe,” Suzuki said. “You’ve got (Mike) Trout and all the guys, they’re all up there rooting guys on and believing that we’re gonna put up runs. And really, we’re just not. It’s not for a lack of effort. It’s not for a lack of anything like that. We just need to find ways to score runs. That’s all.”
After Schanuel’s homer, which snapped a 15-game streak in which the Angels gave up the first run each game, the offense went quiet. Six of the next eight hitters struck out and the Angels didn’t have another baserunner until Lowe’s single in the fifth. And he was erased on a double play one pitch later.
They didn’t get a runner into scoring position until the ninth inning, when Adam Frazier singled and took second on a Trout walk.
The lackluster offensive showing cost José Soriano a victory that he deserved. He gave up two runs in 6⅔ innings, a nice bounceback from a recent rough stretch.
After posting an 0.24 ERA in his first six starts, Soriano had a 6.14 ERA in his past four. That included a start last weekend against the Dodgers, when he inexplicably walked four batters in one inning after dominating for the first five.
Soriano seemed to have his control dialed in from the start on Thursday night. In the first inning, he struck out the side on 11 pitches. He cruised through the first three innings without allowing a baserunner.
When the A’s finally did get a hit, center fielder José Siri erased it. Carlos Cortes bounced a single up the middle, but then he rounded first too far and Siri fired behind him to nab him.
Soriano did not give up a run until the sixth inning, when he allowed a two-out double to Shea Langeliers and then a single to Nick Kurtz. Soriano gave up another run in the seventh. He gave up a two-out RBI single to Darrel Hernaiz.
“I felt great today,” Soriano said. “The most important thing is feel great the whole game. … I tried to get deep. It is what it is. The most important thing is to try to get the W, but we didn’t get the result today.”
Relievers Chase Silseth, José Fermin and Kirby Yates followed Soriano and maintained the tie. Yates pitched a scoreless ninth a night after he allowed a game-tying homer in the ninth.