BALTIMORE — Grayson Rodriguez pitched like his old self in his old ballpark.
When the Angels acquired Rodriguez in an offseason trade with the Baltimore Orioles, they envisioned him pitching the way he did against the Orioles on Tuesday.
They would have liked him to win, though.
A lack of clutch hits doomed the Angels to a 3-1 loss to the Orioles, despite Rodriguez allowing two runs in seven innings, his best start of the season.
“It was weird,” Rodriguez said. “It kind of felt almost normal.”
Orioles fans might have felt like they were watching the pitcher who seemed like he would become their ace, before injuries kept him off the mound for a season and a half.
The Angels had been working him back slowly this year, including two stints on the injured list. When he did pitch, his outings were usually spoiled by one bad inning or a lack of command that ran up his pitch count.
Rodriguez hadn’t even finished six innings in any of his previous 10 starts.
On Tuesday, all of the damage was limited to the third inning, when he gave up two hits and a walk and hit a batter. He hung a slider to Pete Alonso, who drove in both runs with a single into center field.
In the seventh, he gave up a one-out triple, but escaped the jam without any damage, finishing his night with 98 pitches.
Besides those two innings, Rodriguez did not allow a baserunner. He struck out six and walked one.
“I thought he was awesome,” manager Kurt Suzuki said. “Talking to (catcher Travis d’Arnaud), he said the fastball was playing up really good. He threw some good changeups, some breaking balls. Definitely he was pitching with some confidence today, which was nice.”
He threw a first-pitch strike to 20 of the 26 batters he faced, an excellent percentage.
“Aggressiveness in the zone,” Rodriguez said. “I think a lot of it goes to the delivery being synced up and having a repeatable motion to home plate. That’s what it comes down to. This is the big leagues. If you are behind every count to start off, it’s really hard to pitch in this league. Strike one is huge.”
While Rodriguez was zipping through the Orioles’ order, the Angels (43-70) were wasting a steady stream of baserunners, even with a new-look lineup that included newcomer Moises Ballesteros. He singled in his first trip, but finished 1 for 4 with two strikeouts.
The Angels had 11 hits, their most since July 8, but they were 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position.
José Siri hit into an inning-ending double play in the second. In the fourth and fifth innings, Denzer Guzman and Wade Meckler were picked off. It was the first time since 2011 that the Angels had two runners picked off in the same game.
“We talked about (Orioles left-hander Cade Povich) having a good move,” Suzuki said. “Those are the things obviously, we have to acknowledge, that can’t happen at that time. But we learn from it and get better at it and move forward.”
The Angels’ best shot at a rally was in the seventh, when they got a single from pinch-hitter Josh Lowe and then a Meckler walk. Zach Neto hit a fly ball to the fence in left field – a ball that would have been a three-run homer before the fence was moved back a few years ago.
In the eighth, the Angels finally scored on back-to-back doubles by Nolan Schanuel and Vaughn Grissom.
By the time they came to bat in the ninth, they were two runs down because left-hander Mitch Farris gave up a homer to Tyler O’Neill in the eighth.
“Tough at-bats, obviously,” Suzuki said. “The other pitchers executed pitches. I think the fact that we got those runners out there, we got the traffic out there. Eventually, we’ll cash them in. This is part of the game. We just got to grind it out. We got to keep grinding these at-bats, getting guys out there, and eventually they’ll come in.”