PITTSBURGH — Angels pitchers have very little margin for error these days, and certainly not enough to overcome it when one bad inning includes a grand slam.
Tyler Anderson gave up a third-inning grand slam to Edward Olivares and that was all the Pittsburgh Pirates needed to beat the Angels, 4-1, on Monday night.
Anderson didn’t give up anything else in 6⅓ innings, which was little consolation on a night when the Angels (12-23) dropped a season-worst 11 games under .500.
Overall the pitching and hitting have been equally culpable for the Angels’ awful start, but lately it’s been a lack of offense that has sunk the Angels even when the pitching has been passable.
The Angels only run was on a Zach Neto homer, his third, in the sixth inning.
The Angels didn’t have a hit against Pirates right-hander Mitch Keller in the first three innings, and then their chance at a rally in the fourth was scuttled by an out at the plate.
Nolan Schanuel was at first base when Mickey Moniak hit a ball to the fence in left-center. Third base coach Eric Young Sr. waved Schanuel home. Schanuel went into the plate standing up and he was tagged out. Although Schanuel might have been safe if he had slid, it was also likely an overly aggressive decision by Young.
The rule of thumb is that you should never make the first out at home, so a runner shouldn’t be sent unless he’s going to make it easily. Down by four runs at the time, it was an especially poor moment to scuttle a potential big inning before it even started.
Matt Thaiss was thrown out at the plate on Sunday in Cleveland, but that was a more reasonable gamble because there were two outs.
The reason the Angels are pushing the envelope so much on the bases is that they don’t have much power in their lineup, which puts more pressure on their pitchers.
Anderson had trouble in two innings, the second and third. He escaped a jam in the second with a strikeout, but in the third he couldn’t.
Anderson walked leadoff man Andrew McCutchen and No. 3 hitter Ke’Bryan Hayes, around a Bryan Reynolds double.
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After a pop-out, Olivares came to the plate.
Anderson threw him a first-pitch cutter and it cut right back into the barrel of Olivares’ bat, as he ripped it 424 feet and over the left field fence.
Just like that, Anderson gave up more than he had in any of his previous six starts in what was shaping up to be a bounce-back season.
Anderson responded to the grand slam by retiring the next 10 hitters, which at least gave the Angels some time to catch up and prevented them from unloading too much of their bullpen.
Although the hitters couldn’t do anything, Anderson at least helped the Angels’ bullpen to be fresh for the rest of the series.
More to come on this story.