ANAHEIM — One night after a heart-wrenching, ninth-inning loss in their series opener against the Detroit Tigers, the Angels lost in much more direct fashion on Saturday night.
They simply got blown out.
The Tigers shelled Grayson Rodriguez for six runs in the first two innings, and the Angels never came close to mounting a comeback against Detroit ace Tarik Skubal en route to a 7-0 loss at Angel Stadium.
The Angels have lost four in a row and 12 of their past 14 games. With Kansas City’s win earlier in the day, the Angels (38-61) remain in sole possession of MLB’s worst record.
“At the end of the day, we got our asses kicked tonight,” Angels catcher Logan O’Hoppe said. “Doesn’t feel too great.”
The Tigers jumped on Rodriguez immediately. Kevin McGonigle led off the game with a double, Dillon Dingler was hit by a pitch and Colt Keith laced an RBI single to center to make it 1-0 before the Angels recorded an out.
Two batters later, Spencer Torkelson launched a three-run homer over the left-center wall to give the Tigers a 4-0 lead just five batters into the game.
The second inning was more of the same. The first three Tigers batters reached base on a pair of hard singles and another hit batter. With the bases loaded and no outs, Keith and Riley Greene lifted consecutive sacrifice flies to make it 6-0 Tigers.
In his first 11 batters, Rodriguez allowed six runs, five hits, two hit batters and a walk.
“Just leaving balls over the middle of the plate early,” Rodriguez said. “Can’t do that in the big leagues. (It’s) happening more times than I want to this year. It’s what happens when you really can’t show good offspeed stuff in-zone, and they just kind of key in on the fastball.”
Rodriguez rebounded to hold the Tigers scoreless over the next two innings, but the damage was already done. Overall, Rodriguez pitched four innings, allowed seven hits and six runs, walked one and struck out three. His ERA ballooned to 8.23.
“They put some good at-bats on him,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said. “I felt like some of the balls that he left out over the plate, they didn’t miss. That was kind of the story. The first couple innings, when they got a pitch to hit, they barreled it up.”
The Angels’ bullpen didn’t fare much better. Brent Suter entered in the fifth and promptly allowed Torkelson’s second home run of the game, a 420-foot blast that cleared the hedges beyond the center field wall.
With Skubal on the mound, that deficit was far too much for the Angels’ slumping offense to overcome. The two-time reigning American League Cy Young Award winner took his early lead and mowed down the Angels’ hitters with ease. He pitched seven shutout innings, allowed five hits, walked none and struck out nine on just 87 pitches.
The Angels’ only serious threat against Skubal came in the sixth inning when singles by O’Hoppe and Mike Trout gave them runners on first and second with one out. Skubal extinguished it immediately, inducing a weak ground ball from Vaughn Grissom for an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.
“I mean, it’s a big body and big stuff,” O’Hoppe said. “It’s always a tough battle, and he makes his pitches. It’s why he’s one of the best in the game. He had really good stuff tonight.”
The Angels loaded the bases with two outs in the eighth against reliever Jacob Waguespack, but Grissom lined out to center to end their last serious offensive threat of the night.
Overall, the Angels have scored just one run in their last 20 innings.
“We’re in most games that we are playing, and on the losing end most of the time,” Suzuki said. “But I think the one thing that we can take away is the guys. They battle to the end. They put guys on base, and we just need to find ways to get that big hit. We get that big hit, maybe get the momentum going and score some runs, and then kind of carry it from game to game.
“I think that one big hit, which is going to come, I feel like right now is eluding us.”