ANAHEIM, Calif. — For the second time this week, the Los Angeles Angels were blown out by the Texas Rangers.
This time, it was by a game of smallball.
The Rangers (46-48) scored six of their nine runs in Thursday’s 11-4 loss at home by hitting singles all across the Angels’ (45-48) outfield grass. Three of them were from ground balls, and the other three singles were line drives into the outfield.
Starting pitcher Jack Kochanowicz (3-8, 6.03) was on the mound for the Angels tonight. The last time he pitched against the Rangers, he went for 4 2/3 innings with 72 pitches while giving up 4 runs, 8 hits, and one strikeout.
“They singled me to death today,” Kochanowicz said. “There’s been a few different themes. Sometimes it’s the long ball sometime’s it’s that. It just trying to figure out what their approach is and figure out my best approach around that.”
While the strikeouts were up tonight, it was a worse outing than before, going 2 2/3 innings with 8 runs, 8 hits, 3 walks, and 3 strikeouts.
“Didn’t meet the adjustments I needed to. Just trying to stay positive.” Kochanowicz said.
Starting the night by getting Josh Smith to fly out to left, he was already in a nightmare after giving up four straight hard-hit singles to Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Adolis García, and Jonah Heim.
Both García and Heim had RBIs from their singles to give Texas an early 2-0 lead.
Following Heim’s at bat, things went from bad to worse when he walked Wyatt Langford to load the bases with one out.
Facing early adversity, he had to throw his best pitch before the game got out of hand.
Needing to be bailed out, he was when he threw a sinker on the lower outside part of the strikezone to Evan Carter, getting him to ground into a double play and ending the inning.
The second inning was the complete opposite of his fever dream from the first, by retiring the side in order and getting two strikeouts.
“First inning made some good pitches,” Angels interim manager Ray Montgomery said. “On the pitch to García it was pretty good. Hein bounced one through the whole over there which looked to me like it was four or five inches off the plate. He just kind of poked it through there. He just couldn’t get the footing. he’d get ground after that.”
But in the third, his fever dream returned.
Kochanowicz was pulled during the third after giving up seven runs in the inning.
Seager led off the inning by drawing a walk. Then Semien had his second hit of the game.
Looking to get out of a jam, Kochanowicz almost had his first break when Yoán Moncada tagged Seager out at third but wasn’t able to get the throw to first quick enough, resulting in García reaching base with only one out.
Kochanowicz then struck out Jonah Heim on a foul tip to put himself in position to end the inning by needing only one more out.
Wyatt Langford was the next batter up, and he hit a line drive single to left, scoring Semien from third. The Rangers then stockpiled their lead when Evan Carter hit an RBI ground ball single to center. It was the third ground ball hit by the Rangers resulting in a score.
The lead then increased to five when Kochanowicz was charged with a balk on the mound, scoring Langford from third and advancing Carter to second. Frustrated on the mound, Kochanowicz gave up his third walk of the night to Alejandro Osuna in the next at-bat, putting an end to his night.
Brandon Sloter – The Sporting Tribune
Angels Jack Kochanowicz stairin on in a jam during Thursday night’s game against the Texas Rangers
This season, Kochanowicz hasn’t performed as well he did during a promising spring training where he went 1-2 with a 2.79 ERA. Right now, he has an ERA above six and has half as many losses then he does wins.
“I just got to feel better. Obviously last year I had some more success” Kochanowicz said. “More than anything I just wanna contribute to help the team keep winning games but just got to stay positive.”
Carson Fulmer was the name selected out of a thin bullpen that’s been depleted over the last week for an Angels team that hasn’t had a day off since Monday, June 30.
The result wasn’t much better.
Fulmer walked the first batter he saw, then gave up back-to-back RBI singles to Seager and Semien, giving Texas a 9-0 lead. Fulmer put an end to the inning by striking out García on three pitches.
The Angels’ offense provided zero run support in the bottom half of the inning, giving Fulmer a zero on the scoreboard when he took the mound again.
Fulmer remained in the game until the 9th inning. He only gave up two more runs in the eighth from a 2-run homer by García.
“Carson threw the ball great. He was built up early in the year and then he backed off a little bit to come out and do that in that situation,” Montgomery said. “It was a really big help and I don’t want to discredit what he did because obviously you know that’s not an easy effort.”
The Angels scored runs in the fifth, sixth, and ninth innings. Taylor Ward hit a two-run home run for his 21st of the season. In the sixth, LaMonte Wade Jr. hit a line drive to left field for an RBI single. Zach Neto had a solo homer in the ninth.