Anaheim, Calif. — Got him again.
The sixth inning is turning into Jack Flaherty’s biggest nemesis.
“I’ve got to figure it out,” Flaherty said after giving up four runs in the sixth Saturday, as the Los Angeles Angels beat the Detroit Tigers 5-2 to end their seven game losing streak. “I don’t know what’s going on there.”
What makes it confounding is how sharp he was through the first five innings. He cruised into the sixth on just 68 pitches, allowing only an unearned run. He was flummoxing hitters with a nasty knuckle-curveball. He struck out the side in the fifth, that was how good he was throwing.
BOX SCORE: L.A. Angels 5, Detroit 2
Then, as he faced the top of the order for a third time, the wheels came off.
“That third time through, I don’t know,” Flaherty said. “I am searching there for that back half, to carry the stuff over from the first handful of innings to the back half of the game.”
The same thing happened to Flaherty in his start in Houston at the start of this road trip on Monday. He cruised through five and was out of the game after three hitters in the sixth, giving up a two-run homer to Jose Altuve.
On the season, opponents are 11 for 21 and have scored eight runs off Flaherty in the sixth inning.
“I think it’s more a function of how the game is going,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. “The location, an ill-timed walk, that’s when it started. … These are location issues. The walk is going to be the big one because it continued the inning before all the stuff happened.”
Flaherty had allowed four hits in the first five innings Saturday. The one run scored when centerfielder Riley Greene and right fielder Kerry Carpenter failed to communicate and bumped into each other on a two-out, routine fly ball by Kyren Paris.
The ball dropped and Travis d’Arnaud scored from third.
“We both had a bead on it, we just couldn’t hear each other,” said Carpenter, who was charged with the error, even though the ball hit off Greene. “We were both calling for it. It was a mistake. We’ll make the adjustment. I just feel bad we extended an inning for Jack.”
Flaherty shrugged that off and finished with eight strikeouts, six of them with his knuckle-curve. He got 10 whiffs on 15 swings with that pitch.
But in the sixth, he gave up back-to-back singles with his four-seamer and with one out he walked d’Arnaud to load the bases.
Luis Rengifo hit a first-pitch knuckle-curve up the middle for a two-run single. Paris ended Flaherty’s night with another RBI single off a knuckle-curve. The fifth run scored on a single by Tim Anderson off reliever Beau Brieske.
“The whole game comes down to execution,” said Flaherty, who is 1-4 with a 3.79 ERA. “The more you execute, the better position you are in. That’s what was going on in those first handful of innings. I was executing well, putting pitches in good spots. If you make your pitches, good things happen. If you don’t, these are big league hitters and they do a good job with that.”
The Tigers offense, after unleashing four homers and scoring eight runs in the ninth inning Friday, was hushed by veteran right-hander Kyle Hendricks.
The long-time Chicago Cub has been having a rough time in his first season in Anaheim. Over his previous three starts, he’d been tagged with 15 runs with 10 walks and three homers in 12 innings.
It must’ve been flashback Saturday. He flustered the Tigers for seven-plus innings with his soft mix of sinkers (86 mph), change-ups (87) and curves (72).
“For the majority of the game he was disrupting timing,” Hinch said. “We were timed up on anything and that’s the art of pitching. You’re not timed up on his fastball, you’re not timed up on his secondary pitches … he pitched at what the definition of pitching is about.
“We really did have the adjustment and he handled us.”
Hendricks allowed just two singles, was one batter over the minimum through seven innings and finished with 10 ground-ball outs, a vintage performance circa 2016.
Spencer Torkelson finally got him. With one out on the eighth, he launched a slow curveball at the top of zone 401 feet into the left-field seats.
It was Torkelson’s 10th homer, tying his season total from last year.
“Tip the cap,” Torkelson said. “He pitched his butt off. Didn’t miss over the middle a lot and kept us off-balance. He hit his spots. You don’t play that long in this league (16 years) unless you’ve got that kind of stuff.”
The Tigers, as they do, made it interesting in the ninth. Against lefty Brock Burke, pinch-hitter Andy Ibáñez singled and went to third on a long double off the wall in center by Gleyber Torres.
The Angels summoned Kenley Jansen, who gave up six of the eight runs in the ninth on Friday. This time the veteran ended the game, getting a run-scoring ground out from Greene and a lineout by Colt Keith.
“It’s a long season,” Torres said. “The first two games we played really good. Tonight we tried but we didn’t create too many opportunities until the last inning. But tomorrow we have a chance to win the series.”
As for Flaherty’s sixth-inning struggles, Hinch sees it as a temporary condition, not a long-term phobia.
“He’s going to be good in those situations when he executes because Jack is always good when he executes,” Hinch said.
@cmccosky
Want to comment on this story? Become a subscriber today. Click here.