OC Register: Felix Pena’s impressive outing spoiled by Angels’ bullpen, defense

[AngelsWin.com]

HOUSTON — The Angels are giving Felix Peña a chance to show how he could fit into next year’s roster, and he appears to be intent on demonstrating that he’s more than just a fill-in starter.

Peña worked seven innings in his best start, an a strong performance in an otherwise disappointing game for the Angels, who made four errors and gave up five late runs in a 7-3 loss to the Houston Astros on Saturday.

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Kole Calhoun’s three-run homer in the second inning put the Angels up 3-0, and they still led 3-2 after Peña was done. Cam Bedrosian and Hansel Robles pitched the disastrous eighth, with the Angels’ third and fourth errors of the game contributing to the meltdown.

The Angels also saw Justin Upton leave the game with a mild concussion after he collided with Andrelton Simmons chasing a popup in shallow left in the fifth inning.

Although the Angels didn’t get the victory, they could at least take solace in a strong performance from one of the players who may help them get back to contention in 2019.

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Peña gave up one earned run and went an inning deeper than he’d gone before, with the last one rewarding Manager Mike Scioscia for his confidence.

After six innings, Peña had thrown 83 pitches. Peña had been a reliever for the last few years, so the Angels had mostly kept him under 90 pitches since moving him into the rotation. Also, the three hitters due in the eighth were two lefties and a switch-hitter, Marwin Gonzalez, who had two hits already against him.

Considering all that, it would have been easy for Scioscia to justify pulling the right-handed Peña in favor of lefty reliever José Álvarez, who hadn’t pitched in the last three days.

Scioscia, however, stuck with Peña, and he retired lefties Josh Reddick and Brian McCann around Gonzalez.

The only earned run Peña allowed was an Alex Bregman homer in the sixth, which was a 349-foot fly ball that is only a homer in the short porch at Minute Maid Park.

Peña now has a 3.95 ERA in 13 starts in the majors, including a 3.25 mark in the last six.

His strong outing followed games in which Andrew Heaney and Jaime Barría had each tossed six scoreless innings. While the bullpen held on to victories for Heaney and Barría, they couldn’t do it for Peña.

Bedrosian gave up a leadoff single to Tony Kemp. George Springer then reached on a catcher’s interference. Bedrosian struck out José Altuve and Bregman blistered a liner at third baseman Taylor Ward. An out away from escaping with the lead, Bedrosian gave up a single up the middle to Carlos Correa, tying the game.

Robles then allowed two more runs to score on Tyler White’s double off the left-field fence. After a walk, center fielder Eric Young Jr. couldn’t handle a fly ball at the warning track, an error that allowed two more runs to score.

More to come on this story.

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