CLEVELAND — Fitting for this nightmarish season the Angels are enduring, they can’t even celebrate when one of their starters has his best outing of the year.
Griffin Canning made one mistake — maybe not even a mistake — in six innings, and that was enough to cost him in the Angels’ 4-1 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday afternoon.
Canning gave up a two-run homer at the end of a 10-pitch duel with five-time All-Star José Ramirez in the sixth. As a result, he walked off the field down 2-1.
The Guardians added some insurance when Matt Moore gave up a Josh Naylor two-run homer in the eighth. The extra runs weren’t necessary because of the Angels’ struggling offense.
“We didn’t find any holes today,” manager Ron Washington said. “We definitely have to put more runs on the board when we had the opportunity to scratch runs. We just didn’t do it.”
The Angels lineup was already short-handed with Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon and Miguel Sanó on the injured list, but on Sunday they were also without Logan O’Hoppe because of a bruised hand and Luis Rengifo because of an illness.
The remaining players generated just one run, on a Jo Adell sacrifice fly in the second inning. Matt Thaiss was thrown out at the plate trying to score the second run of the inning.
The Angels were 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position. The most frustrating of those outs was in the sixth. After Taylor Ward’s one-out double, Willie Calhoun hit a line drive that was snagged by leaping right fielder Ramon Laureano. Laureano, who regularly tortured the Angels with his defense when he was with the Oakland A’s, also made the first throw in the relay that got Thaiss at the plate.
With the loss, the Angels failed in their 11th consecutive opportunity to win a game that would clinch a series victory. The only series they have won this season was April 1-3 in Miami.
“We’re trying to figure out how to win ballgames, and some nights we do,” Washington said. “We just don’t have the consistency of doing it. But we’re gonna keep driving every single day. We’re gonna keep talking about the things that may not put us where we’re supposed to be on the day we didn’t get it done. And at some point, we’ve got to click. We hit the ball hard today. Just couldn’t find holes.”
The lack of offense was particularly disturbing because it came on a day that Canning was so good.
Canning cruised through the first five innings on just 62 pitches, pounding the strike zone and barely facing any trouble.
In the sixth, he gave up a one-out single just before Ramirez came to the plate. Ramirez fouled off a 3-and-2 changeup and then a slider. Canning then threw him a fastball, up and away, and Ramirez lifted it just a few feet beyond the top of the fence in right field.
“He was fouling off sliders, fouling off changeups,” Canning said. “I just felt I needed to show him something different… He’s a great hitter. He battled and fought off a lot of good pitches. Tip you hat on that one.”
Thaiss, the catcher, said that Ramirez is still “a top three hitter in the game,” despite the fact that he’s started the season with pedestrian numbers. Ramirez has finished in the top six in the MVP voting five times.
“He’s really, really good from both sides of the plate,” Thaiss said. “He knows what he’s doing. You just gotta keep battling with him. Griff did that for 10 pitches. He got us there for that one.”
It was still Canning’s best game of the season. It was the first time he’d finished six innings, and second time he’d allowed as few as two runs. He walked one and struck out five.
“He was on the attack,” Washington said. “The first two or three innings, he was getting first pitch strikes. His breaking ball was working well. He was spotting it well. Ramirez battled in that at bat and he threw a pitch up and away and he got to it. But other than that, he was in command of that game, the whole game. He was in command until Ramirez got him.”