ANAHEIM, Calif. — Another quality outing from an Angels’ starting pitcher amounts to nothing because of a lack of offense. The latest victim is right-hander Grayson Rodriguez.
After a shaky first inning when he allowed a pair of runs, Rodriguez settled in and allowed one run over his next six innings of work.
The bats, however, were shut out and only mustered four hits in their 3-0 loss against the Twins on Friday night.
“Execution and that big hit that we talked about the last couple of weeks, that eluded us tonight,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said.
Things got hairy from the start for Rodriguez.
He hit the leadoff batter of the game and then a single to make it first and third. Ryan Jeffers hit a sacrifice fly and then Josh Bell drove in the other run with an RBI single.
Rodriguez was efficient from then on. Only one baserunner reached second base the rest of his outing, and the only run he gave up after that was a solo home run off of the right field foul pole by Walker Jenkins in the seventh inning.
“I just settled in a little bit,” Rodriguez said. “Had some traffic there, but just settled in and threw strikes.”
He finished his outing going 6 ⅔ innings while allowing three earned runs on eight hits with four strikeouts and no walks surrendered.
Rodriguez lowers his ERA to 5.96 on the season after a terrible start to the year.
“I feel like I’ve come a long way since the start,” Rodriguez said. “Here lately, I feel like it’s been getting a lot better for me in terms of just being able to throw strikes, not just with one or two pitches, but all pitches. I think, for me, that’s important, obviously, throwing four pitches and being able to get in the zone with all four is big, and that’s a key to success for me. I feel like I’ve started to do that a little bit better here lately.”
Three runs isn’t a towering deficit to overcome, but it’s been a struggle for the Angels all season to score.
The Angels entered Friday night’s game with the second-lowest runs scored per game in baseball, and it was no different on Friday night.
Rookie right-hander Connor Prielipp entered Friday with a 5.24 ERA in 22 games. He pitched a career night, shutting the Angels out over seven innings of work while striking out eight and only allowing two hits and two walks.
“He had a good curveball slider thing that he was throwing that was missing bats,” Suzuki said. “He was good. But he mixed it up. He was pretty tough.”
The Angels finished with four hits the rest of the night.
The Angels didn’t get a runner into scoring position until the eighth inning, when they loaded the bases with no outs and the heart of the order at the plate. But it was once again a struggle to score runs, as Mike Trout and Josh Lowe struck out and then Vaughn Grissom flew out to end the inning with nothing to show for it.
“He chased us out of the zone and that one got us,” Suzuki said.
This loss now puts the Angels at 95 losses with eight games remaining in the season, as the Angels look to continue the streak of being the only team in baseball to never lose 100 games in a season.
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