ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Los Angeles Angels were alone at the bottom of baseball’s standings, but thanks in part to the Texas Rangers, that can no longer be said.
The Rangers lost 5-2 to the Angels at Angel Stadium Wednesday night, fell behind on an important in-division road trip, trudged through more of the same issues and continued their season-long struggles against a team that sold big at last week’s trade deadline. It dropped the Rangers to a game below .500 at 60-61 and raised the Angels into a tie with the Athletics for the worst record in baseball at 47-74.
The Angels have won 15% of their total games against the Rangers this season. They are 6-3 against the Rangers, 5-1 against them at Angel Stadium and 41-71 against everyone else. They’ve scored the fifth-fewest runs in baseball but scored more runs in Wednesday’s game than they’ve scored in any other contest in the three weeks prior. They’ve allowed the seventh-most runs in baseball but have held the Rangers to only six through the first three games of this series.
Monday’s series opener started fine, with heady bullpen work and clutch hits, but the Rangers have struggled to capitalize with runners in scoring position since. They’ve gone 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position in consecutive losses, and in Wednesday’s loss, finished 0 for 4 and squandered another bases-loaded opportunity.
They had Angels right-handed pitcher George Klassen — a rookie who brought a 7.27 ERA into the game and allowed a first-inning home run to shortstop Corey Seager — on the ropes in the top of the second inning after four consecutive hitters reached base with two outs. Center fielder Evan Carter singled, catcher Elias Díaz singled, second baseman Nicky Lopez was hit by a pitch and designated hitter Joc Pederson worked a full-count walk to drive in a run. But right fielder Brandon Nimmo, one of the team’s hottest hitters with a .336/.392/.555 slash line in his last 30 games, failed to break the frame open when he hit into a first-pitch groundout in the next at-bat.
“It’s not just one guy or whatever it is,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “We’ve had multiple guys [struggle with runners in scoring position]. Even guys who are feeling really good at the time as well. It’s not like it’s a guy who’s always in a funk that is up there with runners in scoring position. It’s guys that hit the ball really hard throughout the night or that week or whatever.”
It nullified a strong starter from reliever-turned-starter-turned-reliever-turned-starter Cal Quantrill who, after the Rangers placed Nathan Eovaldi on the 15-day injured list, returned to the rotation after a brief sabbatical in the bullpen. Quantrill pitched five innings, allowed one run and turned the game over to a relatively fresh relief staff. Rookies Robby Ahlstrom and Peyton Gray — who’ve been largely rock solid since the All-Star break — combined to allow three runs in the sixth inning on three hits, a hit by pitch and a well-placed sacrifice bunt. The Angels scored another run in the seventh inning after shortstop Zach Neto reached on a leadoff walk and scored when second baseman Adam Fraizer hit a single that ricocheted off of the first base bag and high into the air.
The rest is a bad trend.
“We just didn’t get any breathing room for our pitchers,” Schumaker said. “If they give up a run or two, you’re hoping it was going to be okay because we had a little bit of a lead, but unfortunately we had the bases loaded and only got that one run. We had guys in scoring position it felt like almost every other inning and just couldn’t get a run across.”