Angels throw McCullers for a loop
McCullers struggles with signature pitch as bases get clogged
With his curveball betraying him, Lance McCullers Jr. allows five earned runs as the Angels avoid a sweep with a 14-5 drubbing of the Astros.
ANAHEIM, Calif. — The curveball, previously so indispensable that he threw it half the time in 2016 and 24 consecutive times to torture the Yankees in the 2017 postseason, is betraying Lance McCullers Jr. this season.
That he is throwing it less and winning more is a sign he is learning to get outs without total command of his arsenal. But his grasp of the pitch no longer feels right, and regaining it will have to come in competition.
McCullers and his power curve are such a natural pairing that the young righthander does not practice throwing it. On days he starts, fans and McCullers see his curve for the first time during the game.
Every spectator saw him struggle with it and allow five earned runs Sunday in the Astros’ 14-5 loss to the Angels. His breaking ball got turned around for an RBI double. It bounced away from the plate to set up another run. It hung in the strike zone for Justin Upton to blast a 443-foot home run to center.
McCullers (10-5, 4.01 ERA) faced 22 batters and let 11 of them reach base. The Angels gifted McCullers with poor baserunning and double plays to mitigate
worse damage, but they chased him with six hits and five walks after 41⁄3 innings.
McCullers’ troubles began in the second inning with a leadoff walk to Shohei Ohtani.
“There’s always a walk involved,” manager A.J. Hinch said of McCullers’ trouble.
Alex Bregman started at shortstop, which moved Marwin Gonzalez to left field. Ohtani scored when Gonzalez made a misjudgment. He stepped in on a line-drive double that Ian Kinsler hit off McCullers’ curve. Gonzalez wound up chasing the ball to the wall.
Kinsler advanced to third when catcher Tim Federowicz could not snuff a wild breaking ball in the dirt. Kinsler scored the Angels’ second run on a single by Luis Valbuena.
Another leadoff walk put Mike Trout on to start the third. Then McCullers hung his head immediately after seeing Upton make contact with a knee-high curveball.
“It wasn’t a terrible curveball. It was just up a little bit,” McCullers said.
“A few walks, a lot of damage,” Hinch said.
Upton’s 20th homer made him 5-for-12 against McCullers and put the Angels ahead 4-1.
McCullers also entangled himself when he could not put hitters away with his curve. Kinsler’s double and Upton’s homer came on 1-2 counts.
McCullers had not allowed more than three runs in any of his 10 previous starts against the Angels.
When McCullers almost nicked Upton with an inside fastball to issue a fifth walk, Hinch had seen enough. It was the second consecutive start in which McCullers had five walks.
After scoring one run off Cionel Perez, the Angels poured on seven in the seventh inning, when the Astros needed Will Harris, Chris Devenski and Joe Smith to get three outs.
Harris had eight strong appearances in relief before the AllStar break, but he allowed four runs on three hits and a walk.
Devenski did not record an out. He gave up a high-arcing three-run homer to Kole Calhoun and a line-drive, two-run homer to Trout, his 26th of the season.
Lefty Andrew Heaney (6-6) completed six innings and held the Astros to one run, which J.D. Davis drove in with a single.
Bregman extended his onbase streak to 25 games. His 32nd double plated a pair of runs in the sixth.
The Astros scratched across two more runs thanks to an error and a bases-loaded walk to George Springer, who went 2for-3 with two walks in the game.
The Angels are not good at hitting fastballs. Dallas Keuchel and Justin Verlander proved that in their dominating wins to begin the weekend series.
McCullers is familiar with the strategy. He threw more than twice as many fastballs as breaking balls to keep the Angels to two runs in six innings in May.
He threw an even ratio between a mid-90s fastball and an unreliable curve Sunday.
“It was backing up a little bit,” Hinch said of the curve. “From the onset, Lance was battling himself a little bit.”
In the last three seasons, McCullers has thrown his curveball less frequently: 49.5 percent in 2016, 47.4 percent in 2017 and 46.1 percent in 2018.
Bregman had a chance to get the Astros within four runs when he batted with the bases loaded in the eighth. He seemed more likely to do it as he pushed the at-bat against righthander Deck McGuire to 10 pitches, but his fly out to center signaled the end of the Astros’ competitive effort.
Davis, an infielder/outfielder who twice came in to mop up Astros games last season, pitched the eighth. He gave up a home run to Kinsler, the first batter he faced.
“You’re not going to have a game like this and not have everybody have a little bit of a bad day,” Hinch said. “It’s time to get to the next city.”
The Astros remain five games ahead in the American League West. They travel to Denver for a two-game series against the Rockies that begins Tuesday.
“I’m frustrated that I haven’t pitched well,” McCullers said. “But we won two out of three, and we have a tough schedule ahead, so we can’t be hanging our heads because we had one bad game.”