One bad inning costs Reid Detmers, Angels in loss to Orioles

BALTIMORE — Reid Detmers no longer has to pitch with the stress of wondering whether he’ll be traded.

Instead, he has the stress of knowing he’ll still be with the Angels, who have given him little run support all season.

In Detmers’ first start after the trade deadline, a good outing was ruined by a couple of mistakes that led to three runs, and the Angels lost to the Baltimore Orioles, 5-2.

The Angels have had trouble scoring all year, and it’s gotten even worse lately. They’ve scored just 2.5 runs per game over their last 19 games. They’ve gone 5-14 in those games.

The Angels (43-71) haven’t scored more than four runs in a game since July 24, and they still lost that one.

It’s been an issue all year when Detmers has pitched, which is why he’s gotten only three victories despite pitching well for most of the season.

He pitched well enough that he was one of the top pitchers available before Monday’s deadline. Detmers admitted that, as hard as he tried to avoid thinking about the deadline, the specter of a trade hung over him. An erroneous report on Monday had him thinking briefly that he’d been dealt to the Chicago Cubs.

“I knew my name was going to be all over the place yesterday, but at the end of the day, nothing happened,” Detmers said on Tuesday. “Now it’s time to lock in and finish the rest of the season on a good note.”

He was doing just that for the first three innings on Wednesday night, retiring nine of 10 hitters, with five strikeouts.

With one out in the fourth of a scoreless game, Detmers walked Gunnar Henderson. He then fell behind Tyler O’Neill and threw a 3-and-1 fastball over the middle of the plate. O’Neill drilled it 426 feet, for a two-run homer.

Detmers then got to two strikes on Coby Mayo, who fouled off a couple of pitches to stay alive. Detmers then hung a curveball that Mayo hit over the left field wall, putting the Angels in a 3-0 hole.

“Just kind of lost command a little bit,” Detmers said. “Velo wasn’t really there all day. Just kind of fell out of sync. I think I had two or three extra days, a couple off days in there in between. Yeah, I just felt out of sync and just I was trying to find it and I think I just exhausted myself trying to find it. Obviously it wasn’t very good. It is what it is. You’ve got to bounce back next week. Get some recovery, and everything will be fine next week.”

Detmers threw 27 pitches in the fourth, on a humid night, so the Angels then pulled him after 81 pitches.

“He looked gassed,” Manager Kurt Suzuki said. “Obviously it’s hot out there and and just looked like he was gassed. He was working hard and felt like the best option was just to go to the bullpen right there.”

The Angels got one run back on a José Siri homer in the sixth and one on Wade Meckler’s pinch-hit RBI single in the seventh, but that was it.

On Tuesday night the Angels had a somewhat encouraging performance because they had 11 hits, but went 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position. This time they only had four hits, and were 1 for 4 with runners in scoring position.

“(Trevor Rogers) is a good pitcher, man,” Suzuki said. “He can really pitch and he was on his game tonight. He kept us at bay pretty much the whole game. Obviously Siri’s homer, but other than that, he did a good job of mixing it up, moving the ball around, and executing pitches.”

They remained within striking distance because of a nice job from the bullpen, including Ben Joyce’s long-awaited season debut.

Joyce, who had shoulder surgery in April 2025, finally returned to the mound with a scoreless inning. Joyce struck out one and walked one. His fastball averaged 100.9 mph, and topped out at 102.2 mph.

“It was great,” Joyce said. “I was saying I was probably more nervous for that than my debut. It was awesome. It’s emotional. It’s been 484 days or whatever it’s been, so it was a great feeling, for sure, just to get out there even, and then have a clean inning.”

The Angels were trailing 3-2 in the eighth, when José Fermin gave up a two-run homer to Leody Tavares.

https://Twitter.com/FanDuelSN_West/status/1663387798357917698?s=20