ANAHEIM — The Angels’ bats have gone cold lately.
After a torrid stretch of games on the last trip and in the first game of this homestand, the Angels have been held to four runs in their last three games, including a 5-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday night.
The Angels (11-13) have lost three in a row, despite solid starting pitching in each game.
Left-hander Reid Detmers left the mound in the seventh inning with only three runs on the board, but a fourth was charged to him after he was gone.
A rough offensive night was no surprise, considering the Angels were facing Blue Jays ace Dylan Cease.
“You could just say ‘it’s baseball,’” manager Kurt Suzuki said. “You could say we got cold. I really think it’s the pitching that we faced.”
The Angels struck out 12 times against Cease. That was the bad news. The good news was that they worked him hard enough to get him out of the game with 110 pitches after five innings.
“I know we got him out after five, which was a positive, but I thought his stuff was pretty darn electric,” Suzuki said. “He had 99 and a couple breaking balls and a good changeup. The guys battled with him to try to get something together, but that’s the way that sometimes it goes.”
In the first inning, slumping Nolan Schanuel poked a two-out double down the left field line. Jorge Soler then knocked him in with a single. Soler had been 1 for 23 with 13 strikeouts in his career against Cease.
Two innings later, Zach Neto walked and Mike Trout reached on an infield single, and then both runners moved up on a double steal. Schanuel drove in Neto with a sacrifice fly.
The Angels then had four cracks at the Toronto bullpen. They didn’t get a hit until the ninth inning, when they were down by three. They struck out six more times, finishing the night with 18 punchouts.
Detmers took the loss on a night when he wasn’t at his best but kept the Angels in the game.
“A couple years ago, it would’ve been a struggle,” Detmers said. “Probably would’ve been out of there in the fourth inning or so. I’m proud of myself for getting that deep in the game, giving the bullpen a chance and the team a chance to win.”
In five starts this season, Detmers has a 4.08 ERA. He’s had one bad start, two outstanding ones and two middling outings.
Detmers got into a bases-loaded jam in the first inning, because of two soft singles and an error by shortstop Zach Neto. He escaped the jam by striking out Lenyn Sosa on a slider.
In the third, Detmers hung a changeup to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who belted it 430 feet to straightaway center, for a two-run homer.
The homer followed Detmers’ first walk of the night. His second walk, to the only batter he faced in the seventh inning, also cost him.
That runner scored with reliever Chase Silseth on the mound.
The Angels might have been able to prevent that run if not for a defensive mistake. There was confusion between Schanuel, the first baseman and third baseman Yoan Moncada about who was supposed to be there to take the throw from left fielder Josh Lowe. No one was there, so Lowe threw the ball toward Schanuel, well off line from the plate. Schanuel’s relay was too late.
“I think it was a miscommunication,” Suzuki said. “Yo probably thought Shanny was going to get it, Shanny might have thought Yo was going to be there because it was more towards left center. I think it was a miscommunication. We talked about it got it straightened out.”
A Logan O’Hoppe passed ball in the top of the ninth led to another Toronto run. The ball got past O’Hoppe when Tyler Heineman was trying to bunt.
Besides that, O’Hoppe also struck out four times.
“For anybody who’s caught, it is not fun being a catcher when a guy bunts and pulls it back,” Suzuki said. “Sometimes if it’s right in your vision, you can’t see it. You get blocked out. So, that one’s a tough one for him. And they made good pitches and Logan expanded the zone a little bit.”