Even Trout zones out during skid
His first error in close to 300 games allows go-ahead run to score in Rangers’ late rally.
It had been more than 21⁄2 years since Drew Smyly won a big league game, the Texas Rangers pitcher missing the 2017 and 2018 seasons because of Tommy John surgery and going winless with a 6.51 earned-run average in his first eight games of 2019.
None of that mattered against the Angels on Friday night. Smyly throws with his left hand, which gave him a good chance of beating them, even with a repertoire that couldn’t hold a candle to that of Chris Sale or Hyun-Jin Ryu.
So it was hardly surprising to see Smyly limit the Angels to three runs and five hits in six innings of a 4-3 victory before a sellout crowd of 43,806 in Angel Stadium, earning his first win since Sept. 13, 2016, at Toronto.
The Angels (22-28), who have lost five straight to fall 11 games behind Houston in the American League West, are now 4-14 against lefthanded starters and have a major league-worst .211 average against left-handed pitchers. The second-place Rangers (25-23) have won eight of nine games.
The Angels fumbled
away a 3-2 lead in an unsightly seventh inning in which they committed two errors — including center fielder Mike Trout’s first defensive miscue since April 6, 2017, a span of 296 games — and a bobbled a grounder.
Shin-Soo Choo led off with a one-hop smash past reliever Cam Bedrosian and directly to shortstop Zack Cozart, who was positioned perfectly in a shift. But Cozart, filling in for the injured Andrelton Simmons, did not field the ball cleanly, and Choo reached on the error.
Logan Forsythe walked on a full-count fastball that appeared to catch the inside corner but was called a ball. Nomar Mazara’s grounder to second was bobbled by rookie Luis Rengifo, whose only play was to get the out at first.
Hunter Pence followed with a line drive to center that dropped in front of and then kicked off Trout for an error. Both runners scored for a 4-3 Rangers lead; Forsythe probably would have held at third if Trout gloved the ball.
Rangers reliever Jesse Chavez threw a scoreless seventh, Chris Martin threw a scoreless eighth, and Shawn Kelley struck out Trout with a runner on second to end the game for his fifth save.
The late rally prevented Angels starter Griffin Canning, who allowed one run and three hits in five innings, striking out five and walking two, from earning a win. The rookie needed just 93 pitches to complete seven shutout innings in last Saturday’s 6-3 win over Kansas City, but his first three innings against the Rangers were much more of a grind.
Canning grooved a 94-mph fastball to Choo in the first. The leadoff man punished the mistake, sending a 439-foot homer to right-center for a 1-0 lead. Canning walked two with one out in the second but struck out Ronald Guzman with an 81-mph curve and got Isiah Kiner-Falefa to fly to right.
There was more trouble in the third when Choo singled and Forsythe was hit by a pitch. Canning buzzed through the heart of the order, striking out Mazara with a curve, getting Pence to fly to right and whiffing Joey Gallo with an elevated 2-and-2 fastball.
Canning pushed his pitch count up to 72 in three innings, but a seven-pitch fourth allowed him to complete five innings and hand a 3-1 lead to Justin Anderson to start the sixth.
The Rangers trimmed the deficit to 3-2 with a run off Anderson, Pence leading off with a double to left and scoring on Asdrubal Cabrera’s one-out double to right, a sinking liner that Brian Goodwin got his glove on with a dive but couldn’t hold onto.
Anderson struck KinerFalefa with two on to end the 27-pitch inning.
The Angels scored all their runs in the second. Jonthan Lucroy led off with his seventh homer, a 414-foot shot to leftcenter for a 1-1 tie. Tommy La Stella walked and Goodwin hit a two-out, two-run homer that Hall of Fame punter Ray Guy would have been proud of.
Goodwin sent a towering drive into the right-field corner that traveled only 347 feet and reached 150 feet at its apex, giving Goodwin a hang time of 6.4 seconds. The ball cleared the short wall in right for a 3-1 lead.
The Angels threatened in the fifth when David Fletcher led off with a single to left and Trout hit a ground-rule double to left, putting runners on second and third with no outs.
Shohei Ohtani lined out to first. Albert Pujols, after smoking a liner to left that would have been a three-run homer if it stayed fair, struck out swinging at a 1-2 breaking ball in the dirt, and Lucroy flied to left.