KANSAS CITY, Mo. — At times in the first month of this season, the Angels have given hints with their pitching and hitting that maybe they could defy the experts and be competitive this season.
But a game like Saturday night’s 12-1 loss to the Kansas City Royals provided more fodder for anyone who says these are the same Angels who have not had a winning season in a decade.
Just about everything that could go wrong did, with starter Walbert Ureña giving up four runs and the deficit eventually getting so deep that infielder Adam Frazier finished on the mound for the Angels. The hitters struck out 14 times without drawing a walk.
The Angels made three errors, including two on one play by shortstop Zach Neto.
Catcher Logan O’Hoppe also hurt his left wrist on a foul ball. He was being evaluated after the game.
“I’ve been in a lot of those before,” manager Kurt Suzuki said of the lopsided loss. “It’s one of those things. When it gets rolling for the other team, it gets rolling and it just seems like you can’t do anything right. One game. Just move on to the next.”
The Angels (12-16) have lost six of their last seven games, scoring just 17 runs in those games. They scored seven runs in their lone victory and 10 in the six losses.
The offensive explosions they enjoyed on their last trip through Cincinnati and New York seem like a distant memory. The bats went cold when they got home, and they stayed cold on the first two games of this trip.
“I think everybody’s working and they want to do good for each other,” Suzuki said. “Sometimes when you do that, you press and you try to do too much… When you try too hard, it doesn’t go good in this game. It gets tough. These guys are grinding.”
One of the hitters struggling the most lately is Neto, who has hit .184 with a .578 OPS in his last 13 games. He was 0 for 4 with two strikeouts on Saturday.
Mike Trout, who had a single, has hit .200 since leaving Yankee Stadium, where he hit five homers in a four-game series and sparked a national narrative about whether he was “back.”
“We’re going through something here but we just got to keep our heads high and hopefully get over this hump,” Neto said. “We’ve are all very optimistic. It just takes one game to get hot again.”
For what it’s worth, Trout and Neto have continued to draw walks throughout their current slumps. The hitters behind them — usually Nolan Schanuel or Jo Adell — haven’t done much with those opportunities.
Jo Adell provided the Angels’ only run with his fourth homer. Schanuel had a chance to get the Angels on the board first when he came up with runners at second and third and one out in the second. He struck out, and then O’Hoppe struck out.
Those were two of the 11 strikeouts in six innings against Royals left-hander Cole Ragans.
By the time the Angels got their next hit, they were down by four runs because of a sloppy start from Ureña.
Ureña wasn’t nearly as effective in his second big league start as he was the first time, when he gave up two runs in six innings. Ureña gave up four runs on six hits and five walks. He only walked two in his first game, none until his final inning.
Ureña gave up a homer to Salvador Perez in the second, followed by another run on a walk and two singles. In the third, Ureña gave up a leadoff double to Bobby Witt Jr. and then three more walks and a single. One of the walks came with the bases loaded, pushing home the fourth run.
“He got into a little bit of a trouble there,” Suzuki said. “They found some soft contact. Put the ball in play and made things happen. Credit to them for that. Ureña just kept battling.”
Ureña acknowledged that falling behind in the count was a problem. He threw a first-pitch strike to only seven of the 21 hitters he faced.
“I think that was the bad thing for today,” he said. “I was behind in the counts. But I will keep working in that, so it will be good.”
The game got away from the Angels in the sixth and seventh. An error by third baseman Oswald Peraza opened the door for Chase Silseth to give up a run on a bases-loaded walk. In the seventh, Shaun Anderson gave up three runs. That inning included Neto misplaying a potential double play ball and then making a bad throw.
O’Hoppe was hurt during the seventh, although he stayed in the game to finish the inning.
Right-hander Jordan Romano came in to mop up in the eighth. Two more runs scored before Frazier came in to pitch, and he allowed two more runs to be added to Romano’s line.