ANAHEIM — It’s happening again.

Through the first eight games, the Angels have struck out in 31% of their plate appearances, which is even worse than last year’s 27% rate.

Hitting coach Brady Anderson’s first response to a question about strikeouts was to point out — correctly — that it’s still very early in the season.

“It’s interesting how things can change so quickly in such a short part of the season,” Anderson said on Saturday. “The first four games in Houston, I thought the at-bats were almost, I wouldn’t say perfect, but they were consistently grinding at-bats. Then you get a little… the weather conditions in Chicago, and you have a game like last night where you go 1-for-30, and the numbers get turned around quickly.”

A few hitters are actually around the major league average of 26% or better, led by Nolan Schanuel (15%), Zach Neto (22%), Jo Adell (22%) and Mike Trout (24%). At the other end of the spectrum are Josh Lowe (46%), Jorge Soler (42%) and Oswald Peraza (39%).

“Some of those guys that are struggling have pretty long-standing track records of hitting, so you know they’re going to come out of it,” Anderson said.

Manager Kurt Suzuki said the pitchers the Angels have faced are part of the issue. They’ve faced Houston Astros’ right-hander Hunter Brown and Seattle Mariners right-hander Bryan Woo, who were two of the top five in the American League Cy Young voting last season.

“Obviously, I don’t like striking out,” Suzuki said, “but we’re running into some tough pitching, and these guys are really good at what they do. Our guys know what they gotta do, and they know their approach that they need to take. Sometimes you hit some tough pitching, and you just gotta keep going.”

CLEANUP PITCHER

Early in the season, it became apparent that right-hander Chase Silseth is Suzuki’s first choice to come in from the bullpen to clean up a mess.

Silseth has entered with runners on base in four of his five outings so far this season. He’s stranded four of the six. He has not allowed a run of his own in 3⅓ innings.

“I like his mentality, man,” Suzuki said. “He’s got a go-right-at-you mentality. He’s been working on a lot of stuff with (pitching coach Mike) Maddux, sequencing and that type of thing. I don’t know. I played with some guys that do really well at getting through traffic out there. I know it’s early in the year, but Silly’s been really good at that.”

Silseth’s splitter and his sweeper have been particularly effective at getting swings and misses. He’s gotten 40% whiffs on his splitter and 38% on his sweeper.

Those pitches have also helped him get quick outs. His biggest out of the young season was a first-pitch groundout against Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez.

The two runners that Silseth did allow to score both came in Houston, also, and he took a valuable lesson from that game. He entered with two on and no outs in the fifth and a two-run lead. He got the first two outs, but then he threw a first-pitch sinker over the middle to Christian Walker, who doubled home two runs.

“The guy on deck is looking to swing, so if you’re going to go heater, it has to be a pretty well executed heater,” Silseth said. “I learned that fast… I definitely want that one back, obviously.”

NOTES

Right-hander Kirby Yates (knee) threw his second bullpen session of the week, and he said this one was “much better” than the one on Wednesday in Chicago. Yates last pitched in a game on March 15. …

Right-hander Tyler Bremner, the No. 2 overall pick in the draft last July, was set to make his professional regular season debut with a start for Class-A Tri-City on Saturday night.

UP NEXT

Mariners (RHP Luis Castillo, 0-0, 0.00) at Angels (RHP Ryan Johnson, 0-1, 16.20), Sunday, 1:07 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network, 830 AM