ANAHEIM — The Angels’ patchwork lineup once again failed to put together much of anything.
One bad inning from Patrick Sandoval was enough to send the Angels to a 4-2 loss to the Kansas City Royals because the offense continues to struggle to find any type of consistency.
Although they’ve sprinkled in a few good games – like scoring nine runs twice in the last week – more often they’ve had performances like Sunday’s.
The Angels (15-26) have scored two runs or fewer in six of the last 11 games.
Typically, Manager Ron Washington might try to use situational hitting or aggressiveness on the bases to create runs when they aren’t slugging balls into the gaps or over the fence, but they haven’t even had opportunities to do that lately.
“Well, we hope that the situations come up where you can do something to create some offense but we haven’t been putting ourselves in a position to create much offense,” Washington said. “We just have to wait till these guys get it together. They’re out there fighting their butt off. We just haven’t been able to consistently string things together. Last night we strung things together. Today we didn’t.”
The game got off to an ominous start when Luis Guillorme led off with a double, but the Angels couldn’t even get him to third.
The Angels didn’t score a run until the sixth, when Mickey Moniak singled and scored from first on Willie Calhoun’s double. Calhoun, who homered in the ninth, had three of the Angels’ six hits.
“We had opportunities to do more than just put two runs on board but you gotta give their pitching staff credit,” Washington said.
Royals right-hander Seth Lugo struck out 12 and walked none in eight innings, cutting his ERA to 1.66 this season.
“He was able to mix his pitches,” Calhoun said. “He wasn’t really leaving too many pitches in the heart of the plate. It’s tough to hit anyone when you’re on the black every single time. I feel like he’s been having a pretty good start to the year. He obviously has really good stuff. I’m confident that we’ll be able to turn the page and get back on track.”
It should be no surprise that this is happening to the Angels’ offense.
Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, Miguel Sanó and Luis Rengifo are all on the injured list.
The players who have been healthy have seen some bursts of production with droughts in between. Taylor Ward, Jo Adell and Logan O’Hoppe have been the best hitters among those who have been with the team all season.
The poor offensive performance left Sandoval with a loss on a day when his struggles were confined to one inning.
In Sandoval’s previous two games, he had allowed just two earned runs in 12 innings, with 17 strikeouts and three walks. Sandoval looked every bit the same pitcher in five of the six innings that he completed on Sunday. The Royals didn’t score a run in those innings and they didn’t even get a runner into scoring position.
The problem was what happened in the fourth.
The first five hitters of the inning had hits. Three were solid line drives. One was a blooper and one was a bunt single. That added up to a four-run inning that was too much for the Angels to overcome.
“Got ahead of them and I made some bad pitches and bad decisions,” Sandoval said.
Sandoval and the Angels could at least take some consolation in the fact that he bounced back after the rough fourth to complete six innings. He allowed 11 hits, but he didn’t walk anyone.
Washington and Sandoval said this game was a continuation of the better work he’s done lately, despite the fact that it was a loss.
“I’m in the zone way more,” Sandoval said. “Walks are down. Punchouts have been up prior to this game. Encouraging signs.”
