ANAHEIM — The Angels provided an Angel Stadium sellout crowd of 44,714 with plenty of entertainment, but not a victory.
After trailing by four runs in the second inning, the Angels rallied to tie the score in the sixth and seventh innings before losing, 8-6, to the Boston Red Sox in their home opener on Friday night.
Logan O’Hoppe’s sixth-inning grand slam pulled the Angels even, and they had a few chances to take the lead after that, but they couldn’t do it.
“We know who we are,” O’Hoppe said. “It’s going to take for everyone else to see. … We know we’re capable of doing that tonight. We’re capable of finishing the job when we get in situations like that going forward.”
Their failure to finish the job this time was largely because of the ineffectiveness of José Soriano, the Angels’ flame-throwing multi-inning reliever who had been dominant in his season debut last weekend. He gave up single runs in the seventh, eighth and ninth.
Jarren Duran, a product of Cypress High and Long Beach State, gave the Red Sox the final lead of the night with an eighth-inning homer off a 99.4-mph fastball from Soriano.
Soriano gave up another homer in the ninth, the second of the game from Tyler O’Neill, and the Angels (4-3) saw their four-game winning streak come to an end.
“They showed what they’re made of,” Manager Ron Washington said of his team’s comeback. “The game wasn’t over till the ninth inning, and I guarantee a lot of people thought it was over after they scored four runs. I’m proud of how those guys continued to have good at-bats. We just came up short.”
The Angels fell behind 4-0 in the second inning when Griffin Canning gave up three homers, and the hosts didn’t even get their first hit until the fourth.
In the fifth the Angels pushed home a run, but Mike Trout hit a flyout to leave the bases loaded. The Red Sox then got that run back in the top of the sixth, taking a 5-1 lead.
The Angels then capitalized on a sloppy inning from the Red Sox. Taylor Ward hit a fly ball to center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela, who had the ball in his glove and simply dropped it. Brandon Drury then hit a grounder to third baseman Rafael Devers, whose throw to second was dropped by Enmanuel Valdez. Miguel Sanó was then hit by a pitch loading the bases.
An out later, O’Hoppe blasted a ball over the center field fence, tying the score with his first career grand slam.
The momentum was firmly on the Angels’ side at that point, but the Red Sox kept shoving them back down every time they hopped up. Each time the Angels scored, the Red Sox scored in the following inning.
“We couldn’t put a shutdown inning from the sixth inning on,” Washington said. “If we could have shut down two of those innings, it might have been a different game.”
By the time it was over, Canning’s outing seemed a distant memory.
Canning made it through 4⅔ and he allowed four runs, all of them coming on the three homers he allowed in the second inning.
Canning hung a slider to O’Neill on a 1-and-0 pitch, and O’Neill hit it into the seats in right center.
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Canning’s next pitch was a first-pitch fastball over the outside corner to Triston Casas, who also went the other way to hit a homer to left field.
After an out and a hit batter, Canning threw another first pitch fastball to Reese McGuire, who pulled out to left field.
“Too many fastballs center cut,” Washington said. “Against some good hitters that like first-pitch fastballs and we gave them first-pitch fastballs.”
The velocity on the two fastballs that the Red Sox hit out were 92.8 and 91.6 mph. Two starts into the season, Canning’s average fastball has been 92.7 mph, which is down from last season’s average of 94.7 mph.
“I would like to throw harder,” Canning said. “But it’s early. I’m trying to find the feels that I want to have. Just stick with the process and go from there.”
Logan O’Hoppe’s first career grand slam is of the game-tying variety!
(MLB x @DairyQueen) pic.twitter.com/JVZ9OSUnxr
— MLB (@MLB) April 6, 2024