OC Register: Pirates’ grand slam is too much for Angels to overcome

[AngelsWin.com]

PITTSBURGH — Angels pitchers have very little margin for error these days, and certainly not enough to overcome it when one bad inning includes a grand slam.

Tyler Anderson gave up a third-inning grand slam to Edward Olivares and that was all the Pittsburgh Pirates needed to beat the Angels, 4-1, on Monday night.

Anderson didn’t give up anything else in 6⅓ innings, which was little consolation on a night when the Angels (12-23) dropped a season-worst 11 games under .500.

Overall the pitching and hitting have been equally culpable for the Angels’ awful start, but lately it’s been a lack of offense that has sunk the Angels even when the pitching has been passable.

The Angels only run was on a Zach Neto homer, his third, in the sixth inning.

The Angels didn’t have a hit against Pirates right-hander Mitch Keller in the first three innings, and then their chance at a rally in the fourth was scuttled by an out at the plate.

Nolan Schanuel was at first base when Mickey Moniak hit a ball to the fence in left-center. Third base coach Eric Young Sr. waved Schanuel home. Schanuel went into the plate standing up and he was tagged out. Although Schanuel might have been safe if he had slid, it was also likely an overly aggressive decision by Young.

The rule of thumb is that you should never make the first out at home, so a runner shouldn’t be sent unless he’s going to make it easily. Down by four runs at the time, it was an especially poor moment to scuttle a potential big inning before it even started.

Matt Thaiss was thrown out at the plate on Sunday in Cleveland, but that was a more reasonable gamble because there were two outs.

The reason the Angels are pushing the envelope so much on the bases is that they don’t have much power in their lineup, which puts more pressure on their pitchers.

Anderson had trouble in two innings, the second and third. He escaped a jam in the second with a strikeout, but in the third he couldn’t.

Anderson walked leadoff man Andrew McCutchen and No. 3 hitter Ke’Bryan Hayes, around a Bryan Reynolds double.

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After a pop-out, Olivares came to the plate.

Anderson threw him a first-pitch cutter and it cut right back into the barrel of Olivares’ bat, as he ripped it 424 feet and over the left field fence.

Just like that, Anderson gave up more than he had in any of his previous six starts in what was shaping up to be a bounce-back season.

Anderson responded to the grand slam by retiring the next 10 hitters, which at least gave the Angels some time to catch up and prevented them from unloading too much of their bullpen.

Although the hitters couldn’t do anything, Anderson at least helped the Angels’ bullpen to be fresh for the rest of the series.

More to come on this story.

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[fan_since79]

Angels pitching is 14th in the league in ERA. Something's got to give soon or the season could fall right off the cliff.

 

[Jason]

1 minute ago, fan_since79 said:

Angels pitching is 14th in the league in ERA. Something's got to give soon or the season could fall right off the cliff.

 

Lol, sir, it is over and isn't going to happen this year. It never was. 

[jsnpritchett]

2 minutes ago, fan_since79 said:

Angels pitching is 14th in the league in ERA. Something's got to give soon or the season could fall right off the cliff.

 

Angels are also 10th in the league in scoring and will drop lower unless something changes quickly.  Giving up a bunch of runs and not scoring many--not a great combo!

[fan_since79]

What I meant by "right off the cliff" was 110-120 losses. I think we can avoid that if we make some moves/trades, soon. What we're putting out there is not working.

[jsnpritchett]

Just now, fan_since79 said:

What I meant by "right off the cliff" was 110-120 losses. I think we can avoid that if we make some moves/trades, soon. What we're putting out there is not working.

I can't imagine that the Angels would make a trade that would measurably improve them THIS season.  I don't even know what a trade like that would look like, given the Angels' resources and needs moving forward.

[fan_since79]

If we continue at the pace of the last 25 games we'll finish with a total of 42 wins. I think we're better than that. 

Time to snap out of it. Enough is enough!

[Anthony Tendon]

This team is hot garbage. Needs completely new leadership.

[stormngt]

3 hours ago, fan_since79 said:

What I meant by "right off the cliff" was 110-120 losses. I think we can avoid that if we make some moves/trades, soon. What we're putting out there is not working.

Do not....do not make any moves to improve this year.  Make moves for the future only. 

[yamsi12]

The team is toast.

[Jason]

6 hours ago, yamsi12 said:

The team is toast.

[Duren, Duren]

I've recently been trying to look at each game just by itself. No thoughts about the standings. That way each game is an isolated self contained piece of baseball entertainment. Cheering for the Angel underdog, but resigned to the fact that they likely will lose. Then groundhog day over again for the next game. 

But it's almost impossible to do. You can't help recognizing the trends and the big picture. So I just try to keep an objective approach and focus on the young guys. And hope that there are more competitive games making the time spent entertaining enough. 

[Tank]

yeah, i don't care too much about what their record will look like this year. any trades this year should be for next year and beyond. 

[Jason]

17 minutes ago, Tank said:

yeah, i don't care too much about what their record will look like this year. any trades this year should be for next year and beyond. 

This should have been everyone's expectations from the start of the season. 

[arch stanton]

On 5/7/2024 at 6:52 PM, Duren, Duren said:

I've recently been trying to look at each game just by itself. No thoughts about the standings. That way each game is an isolated self contained piece of baseball entertainment. Cheering for the Angel underdog, but resigned to the fact that they likely will lose. Then groundhog day over again for the next game. 

But it's almost impossible to do. You can't help recognizing the trends and the big picture. So I just try to keep an objective approach and focus on the young guys. And hope that there are more competitive games making the time spent entertaining enough. 

This is the way I learned to watch the Angels in the early to mid '70s. I can't force myself to be miserable about what won't happen 5 months from now

[Slegnaac]

10 hours ago, arch stanton said:

This is the way I learned to watch the Angels in the early to mid '70s. I can't force myself to be miserable about what won't happen 5 months from now

Fortunately back then, a limited number of games were televised.