Swanson: Angels keep losing, keep fighting
The home team failed to score another run Sunday – although Zach Neto sent a shot to the warning track and Logan O’Hoppe singled.
ANAHEIM – Judging by the lengthy pregame parade around the field, I’d guess, oh, half of the 38,741 customers in the audience to see the Cleveland Guardians sweep the Angels on Sunday afternoon were local Little Leaguers.
That’s not official by any means, but go with it – and give me this, too: The 5-4 loss that brought the Angels’ record to sad 6-19 at home and left them a frustrating 5-11 in one-run games was not, in fact, Rated R or even PG-13 or in any way unsuitable for children.
On the contrary.
The Little Leaguers likely learned something Sunday. This was Baseball 101. Life lessons disguised as balls and strikes: Things are never – well, never say never, so … things are rarely as bad or as good as they seem.
On Sunday things could have been much worse for the Angels.
Starter Reid Detmers could have crumbled after a third inning. Could have unraveled after he hit the Guardians’ Andres Gimenez, the second batter he faced, in the helmet before walking Jose Ramirez and David Fry and giving up a two-out, two-run double to Johnathan Rodriguez.
The 10th overall pick in 2020, Detmers started this season well, winning his first three starts before stalling and losing his next five decisions — including Sunday’s, in which he entered the fourth inning having struck out six of the nine batters he’d faced but also having walked four and hit another.
He could have wilted, but he came back out and retired the side in order each of the next two innings, needing just eight pitches both innings.
“That’s just part of our competitive nature, that’s how we got here,” Detmers, 24, said. “Just go out there and fight. That’s really all it is.”
And when relievers Adam Cimber and Matt Moore came on and combined to let Cleveland score three more runs in the sixth inning, the Angels could have predicted their fate and accepted it. But they kept kicking.
It was as if manager Ron Washington’s ballclub – now with a 20-33 record and facing a team that would win its ninth consecutive to improve to 36-17 – believed it could still win the game. Shoot, some of their fans might have thought it possible too.
That’s the whole idea, isn’t it?
Of course, things could have gotten seriously out of hand if not for Jo Adell’s leaping takeaway over the right-field wall to end the eighth inning.
That perfectly timed leap – learned, Adell said, over the course of every-other-day practice reps, of rehearsing plays at the wall that can’t be expected to come naturally – robbed Ramirez of a what would’ve been a three-run home run.
“In a game, the plays aren’t normal,” Adell, 25, said. “Putting myself in that situation to be a little vulnerable to make mistakes in practice and really work on challenging plays really has kind of made everything else a walk in the park.”
#Let’sJooooo, the Angels seemed to say with their bats in response. They hit around and scored two runs – stubbornly, with two outs – in the bottom of the eighth to cut the deficit to a single run.
In the top of the 1-2-3 ninth, Luis Rengifo made his own sparkling defensive play that set up the Angels with an opportunity to really send a message: Don’t give up, kids!
But things are rarely as good as they seem on those occasions that they seem good at Angel Stadium.
So keep fighting, for sure. But also: Life is hard, man.
You’re gonna win some, and you’re gonna lose some – or more than some. These youngsters should know what they’re getting into if they’re getting into Angels fandom.
The home team failed to score another run Sunday – although Zach Neto sent a shot to the warning track and Logan O’Hoppe singled – and Cleveland’s sweep was complete when pinch hitter Willie Calhoun grounded out to end the game.
There’s a certain futility in a team being 7-19 in games decided by two runs or fewer, and 2-13 at home in that scenario. But there’s also a certain pride; no team would come close so often unless it was fighting.
“We even put ourself in position to get the closer,” Washington said, eager to identify a silver lining. “And if anyone knows anything about (Emmanual) Clase, he’s pretty good. All you gotta do is look up there and look at his era (0.50), he’s not giving up much. But we put ourselves in position…
“We had the winning run at the plate, we just gotta keep working and keep getting better. And I feel good about the way we played against the Cleveland (Guardians), you know what I’m saying?
“We had a chance to win it.”
Unfortunately for the Angels, there isn’t a column in the standings for chances alongside wins and losses. Fortunately for them, perhaps, these losses could prove to be lessons — for the kids in the stands, and the ones on the field, too.