ANAHEIM — As José Suarez trudged from the mound to the dugout, Angel Stadium fans let him know how they felt about the start to his season by showering him with boos.
The Angels’ left-hander entered in a close game and turned it into a not-so-close game, allowing four runs in the sixth inning of the Angels’ 6-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday afternoon.
Suarez now has a 9.20 ERA in 14⅔ innings over eight games.
“What I’m seeing from him is he’s just got to pound the strike zone, make some better pitches,” manager Ron Washington said. “He’s on our roster. He’s going to have to be used. We’re just gonna keep working with him to try to get him to the point where he can become who we think he is. You gotta get outs right there.”
It’s a small sample, to be sure, but the results have been consistently poor. This comes on the heels of a 2023 season in which Suarez had an 8.29 ERA, accumulating most of that in the first month before spending almost five months on the injured list.
“Things are not going my way,” Suarez said through an interpreter. “I think the pitches are there, but things aren’t going my way. I’m going to keep working.”
Suarez, 26, has not been able to reproduce the solid work he did as a starter in 2021 and 2022. Now, he’s out of options, and another team would likely take a crack at him with a waiver claim if the Angels attempted to send him to the minors.
So far the Angels have only used him in games when they were losing. In four of the games the deficit was at least four runs, but in the other four the Angels have been down by one or two runs. He turned a two-run deficit into a four-run deficit in what was eventually a one-run loss on April 14 in Boston, and on Wednesday his outing was again costly.
The Angels trailed 2-0 before Suarez entered, and then he didn’t retire any of the first five hitters he faced. He got a double play, but a fourth run scored to run the deficit to 6-0.
That’s when he left and the fans let him hear it.
Adding to their frustration, soon after Suarez left the Angels’ hitters finally woke up, getting back in the game.
The Angels had just one hit through the first five innings, but in the sixth inning Mike Trout blasted a homer – his major-league leading 10th of the season – and then Taylor Ward hit a two-run homer. Zach Neto added a solo homer in the eighth, cutting the deficit to two runs.
In the ninth, the Angels scored one run when Ehire Adrianza went all the way to third on an infield hit and an error and then scored on a ground ball. Jo Adell drew a two-out walk, but he was caught stealing second to end it. The play was reviewed and he appeared to be safe, but the call on the field stood.
“From all the replays we saw, he was safe,” Washington said.
The replay official couldn’t definitively determine if Adell had beaten the tag or not, so it was neither confirmed nor overturned, according to a statement from MLB. In those cases, the call on the field is allowed to stand.
“That’s up to (the replay officials) to choose, and to get these plays right,” Adell said. “But at that particular moment, I don’t think they got that right.”
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By coming up short, the Angels stuck Tyler Anderson with a loss on a day that he allowed two runs in five innings.
Anderson escaped the first, third and fifth innings, stranding two runners each time.
He was assisted by his defense twice. In the third, Miguel Sanó made a diving stop at third base to save a run. Two innings later, Ward tracked down a ball in the gap in left-center, saving an extra-base hit.
Sanó later left the game with left knee soreness. Washington said it was nothing serious, just something that had been bothering him, and “flared up.”
With the loss, the Angels (10-15) once again failed to win back-to-back games. They haven’t had a winning streak of any length since winning four in a row from March 31-April 3, which was 19 games ago. They haven’t won a series in that span either.
“Gotta stay in the process,” Washington said. “What we are learning as a young team in there, we are learning what it takes to win. We’re close. We’re learning what it takes to win. And once we start doing the things that put us on the other side of what’s been happening, we’ll start learning how to win. We’re getting there. We’re not quite there yet.”
Mike Trout is the first Major Leaguer this season to hit 10 home runs. pic.twitter.com/jeceqUx7Y9
— MLB (@MLB) April 24, 2024
.@TimSalmon15 breaks down the final play of the game@Angels | #RepTheHalo pic.twitter.com/XDGhj6ugKV
— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) April 24, 2024
Taylor Ward gets it just over the wall for the 2 run HR@Angels | #RepTheHalo pic.twitter.com/BeI9wmKiFc
— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) April 24, 2024
No words.@Angels pic.twitter.com/a3e8WKTIsW
— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) April 24, 2024
SANÓ SNAGS A HEATER & GETS THE OUT@angels | #RepTheHalo pic.twitter.com/IRr3ks4U5e
— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) April 24, 2024