ANAHEIM — An early five-run lead with one of their best starters on the mound should have been an easy victory for the Angels.
But nothing is easy this season.
Walbert Ureña couldn’t get out of the fourth inning, and the Angels gave up the lead by the fifth. They also surrendered a one-run lead in the eighth, and lost, 8-6 in 10 innings, to the Cleveland Guardians on Tuesday night.
After exploding early offensively in the first two innings, the Angels could manage nothing but Vaughn Grissom’s second homer of the game, in the fifth inning, the rest of the way.
The Angels’ bullpen, which was shorthanded because they currently have six starters, couldn’t hold down the Guardians.
Right-hander Ryan Watson gave up a run in the eighth to allow the Guardians to tie it. In the 10th, left-hander Blake Weiman gave up hits to two of the first three batters he faced, scoring two runs.
In the bottom of the 10th, the Angels got the tying run into scoring position after Christian Moore was hit by a pitch and José Siri bunted him and the automatic runner to second and third. But Denzer Guzman and Adam Frazier both struck out.
The Angels’ best shot at winning in regulation was in the eighth, but Mike Trout was robbed on a spectacular leaping catch at the fence by Guardians center fielder Angel Martinez.
In the ninth, Moisés Ballesteros, Grissom and Josh Lowe all struck out.
That looked a little more familiar than the way they started the game.
The Angels (52-81), who have struggled to put much together offensively for most of the past six weeks, got off to a hot start against Cleveland right-hander Gavin Williams.
In the first, Trout reached on an infield hit and then Grissom yanked a two-run homer down the left-field line.
The Angels knocked Williams out of the game with three more runs in the second, including a Christian Moore homer. Moore’s homer came on a fastball that was up and in. Moore acknowledged his issue early in his major league career has been hitting high fastballs.
Guzman and Zach Neto also had RBI hits in the inning, to give the Angels a 5-0 lead.
But it wasn’t Ureña’s night.
He equaled his season-high with five walks. A double play in the second inning helped him escaped a bases-loaded, no-outs jam, and he continued his tightrope walk through the first three innings.
In the fourth, Ureña issued another walk to start the inning. Two outs later, he gave up three straight hits, including Steven Kwan’s broken-bat infield single.
That ended Ureña’s night, with the Angels leading 5-3 and needing to milk 16 more outs of a thin bullpen. Right-hander José Fermin was the first one through the bullpen door, and he gave up the lead in the next inning. Fermin gave up three straight two-out hits in the fifth, allowing the Guardians to tie the score, 5-5.
Guardians slugger Jose Ramirez had three doubles and drove in five runs.
More to come on this story.