Angels let game get away in one inning
The Angels did just enough of everything wrong in losing 5-3 to the Seattle Mariners on Saturday night.
The offense mostly failed to come through in the clutch, although Shohei Ohtani hit a monstrous homer.
Starter Patrick Sandoval struggled enough that he could only make it through five innings, although he left with a 2-1 lead.
The combination of Sandoval's short start and the lack of offensive support left no margin for error for the bullpen, which didn't even hold the lead for one inning.
The Angels have now lost four of five games at home to the Kansas City Royals and Mariners, erasing all they had accomplished by winning four of five last week in Seattle.
This one got away in one ugly sixth inning.
Archie Bradley took the mound with a one-run lead, and he issued two walks, sandwiched around an error by third baseman Tyler Wade. Bradley struck out Eugenio Suarez for the second out of the inning, but then José Quijada walked Jesse Winker to force in the tying run. Quijada then gave up a two-run single to Kevin Padlo to give the Mariners a 4-2 lead.
Quijada started the seventh, just after the Angels had scored a run to cut the deficit to one, and he proceeded to give it right back, on a walk, a double and a sacrifice fly.
The Angels got just one runner into scoring position
Mariners rookie Julio Rodriguez scores a run on a single by Kevin Padlo in the sixth inning against the Angels.
THE SCORE
MARINERS 5, ANGELS 3
Up next: Mariners at Angels, today, 1:07 p.m., BSW
over the final three innings, ending a night in which their offense was mostly solo homers by Ohtani and Kurt Suzuki.
Ohtani's was memorable, at least.
His 462-foot homer into the right field seats in the third inning was the fourth longest homer of his career and the longest this season. The ball left his bat at 118 mph, the hardest of any of his homers.
Ohtani teed off on a 96.8 mph fastball from Seattle right-hander Logan Gilbert, the hardest pitch he's homered against this season. Ohtani then spent an extra beat or two standing and admiring his 16th homer of the season.
An inning later, Suzuki hit a homer to right, which was all the support the Angels for for Sandoval.
Sandoval gave up one run in five innings in a
rollercoaster outing that could have been much better or much worse.
It could have been worse because he walked two and gave up eight hits, pitching constantly with traffic on the bases.
He struck out J.P. Crawford looking — on a pitch that was seemingly outside — to leave the bases loaded in the second. He struck out former teammate Justin Upton to leave the bases loaded in the third, so frustrating Upton that he snapped his bat over his thigh.
All told, the Mariners left nine runners on base against Sandoval in five innings.
On the other hand, it could have been much better for Sandoval, because many of the hits that got him into such jams were well-placed bloopers. The Mariners got four hits against Sandoval that had exit velocities of 75 mph or less.
That frustrated Sandoval so much that he once angrily spiked a ball into the ground as he was throwing it out of play.