MINNEAPOLIS — This week the Angels have added a new element to their losing formula.
Besides the poor performances at the plate, which have been ongoing for more than two weeks, now the rotation is struggling.
Opening Day starter Yusei Kikuchi gave up four runs on nine singles in the Angels’ 5-1 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Saturday.
Kikuchi was knocked out after failing to get an out in the third inning. It was the third time in the last five games that an Angels starter failed to get through the fourth, which didn’t happen at all in the first 21 games.
The confluence of poor hitting and pitching dropped the Angels (12-14) to their 10th loss in the last 14 games.
They also lost first baseman Nolan Schanuel, at least temporarily.
Schanuel left the game in the fourth inning after suffering a right knee contusion when he fouled a ball off his knee. He was in such pain that he had to be helped off the field, unable to put his weight on his leg.
There was no immediate word whether Schanuel will need to go on the injured list.
As for Kikuchi, he endured his worst outing of the season, and it could have been worse without some help from the bullpen.
Kikuchi’s bad day was a surprising outcome because the Twins came into the game batting .157 against left-handers, and Kikuchi had held opponents to a .217 average.
Had Kikuchi simply made a few bad pitches that wound up on the other side of the fence, that would have been more logical than the Twins drubbing him with a parade of singles. They did not have an extra-base hit against Kikuchi.
A few of them were unlucky, just well-placed ground balls, but five of them had exit velocities over 100 mph.
As Kikuchi struggled to find himself on the mound, he was also charged with three pitch timer violations.
The last one came with a 3-and-2 count on Ryan Jeffers, leading to a walk that loaded the bases with no outs in the third.
At that point the Angels trailed 4-1, so the game could have turned into a blowout, but Ryan Johnson kept it within striking distance. He struck out the next two hitters and then got a groundout.
While the Angels were never out of the game, the hitters didn’t do much to get them back into it either.
After Zach Neto’s homer put them on the board in the third inning, the Angels had only one runner in scoring position for the rest of the day.
That was also Neto, who singled and stole second in the sixth. He had three of the Angels’ five hits and three stolen bases. Neto is hitting .300 with three homers in his first eight games since coming off the injured list.
More to come on this story.
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