Angels Official Website: Angels Notes: Matt Shoemaker’s rough day easily forgotten

[AngelsWin.com]

ANAHEIM — Matt Shoemaker picked a good day to have a bad day.

By the time he talked to the media about a sloppy outing in which he’d allowed seven runs, he did so amid a joyful clubhouse following the Angels’ stirring seven-run ninth-inning rally to victory on Sunday.

“Overall it was really frustrating,” Shoemaker said. “I felt pretty good, felt OK. A couple pitches to one guy really did the damage.”

That one guy was Robinson Cano, the Mariners star who had come into the game looking for his first homer and first RBI of the season. He got both in one swing against Shoemaker in the third, a three-run homer that put Seattle up 4-1.

In the fifth, Cano hit a two-run double after the Mariners had loaded the bases on a walk, a catcher’s interference and a hit batter.

Shoemaker was pulled with one out in the fifth, down 6-1, and the lead grew to 7-1 after a sacrifice fly against reliever Mike Morin.

“Shoe didn’t have his edge,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “Obviously, they had a lot of traffic on the bases. He put on a lot of guys. He hit a couple guys, walked a couple guys. I don’t think he ever got in his groove. It wasn’t his day. He’ll be better.”

Two starts into his season, Shoemaker has not pitched up to the level he or the Angels would like. He gave up only two runs in his first start, but he walked three and needed 99 pitches to get through five grueling innings. Fortunately, the Angels rallied late to win that game, too, on Danny Espinosa’s three-run homer in the ninth.

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Seven games into the season, the Angels still have not a starter throw a pitch in the seventh inning, and they’ve had only one finish the sixth.

The bullpen has picked up the slack nicely, helping the Angels to win five of those games, but Scioscia knows this can’t go on indefinitely.

“If you are going around three times in your rotation, like we did last year for a while when a lot of guys were banged up, and you’re getting 14, 15, 16 outs a start, you better have an extra guy in your pen,” Scioscia said before Sunday’s game. “We’re not there yet. We’ve absorbed it. We’ll be OK.”

On Monday they will have their first off day of the season, which gives them a chance to reset their bullpen. After that, though, they begin a stretch of 20 games in 20 days, so there will be a premium on preserving the bullpen.

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The Angels will face Cole Hamels, A.J. Griffin and Yu Darvish when the Texas Rangers come to Angel Stadium for three games, starting Tuesday. They’ll counter with Tyler Skaggs, Jesse Chavez and Ricky Nolasco…

Albert Pujols, who had five hits and three hard-hit outs in the last two games, rejected the notion that he just started feeling good this weekend: “I’ve been comfortable since the season started. I hit some balls hard in Oakland. you guys start pointing fingers with 10 at-bats into the season. I’ve been in this situation before. I know what I can do. This is not a sprint. It’s a marathon.”

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