Angels’ miserable Texas trip continues with another loss – Orange County Register

ARLINGTON, Texas — A night after Manager Phil Nevin was angry at his team’s lack of focus in an embarrassing loss, they responded with … a normal loss.

The Angels dropped a 7-3 decision to the Texas Rangers on Tuesday, a game in which neither starter Lucas Giolito nor the Angels hitters did much to distinguish themselves.

While they at least cleaned up the mental mistakes that marred their 12-0 loss on Monday, it was nonetheless their 11th loss in the last 14 games. The Angels (59-62) are three games under .500 for the first time all season.

They have lost four of five games on this trip to Texas to face the Houston Astros and Rangers, with mercifully just one game remaining. In each of the losses, they’ve trailed by at least four runs while their starting pitcher was in the game.

The most runs they’ve scored so far on this trip is three. They have just three in the first two games against the Rangers, two of them on a Randal Grichuk ninth-inning homer after they were down by six on Tuesday night.

Giolito gave up four runs in six innings in his fourth start with the Angels. Outside of one terrible outing in which he gave up nine runs against the Atlanta Braves, Giolito’s other games have been similar.

In each of the others, he gave up three or four runs and pitched five or six innings.

Certainly, none of those would meet the standard of a good outing, particularly for someone with Giolito’s career track record, but he has demonstrated an ability to limit the damage and spare the bullpen an excessive workload. His 110 pitches were a season-high.

Three of the runs Giolito allowed on Tuesday came in a three-batter sequence in the third inning.

He opened the inning with a walk of No. 9 hitter Travis Jankowski – an ominous start. Marcus Semien then got an 0-and-2 pitch on the outside corner and drove it down the right field line for a triple.

Giolito then threw a fastball right down the middle to Corey Seager, who lifted it barely over the fence in left-center. Center fielder Jordyn Adams leaped and got his glove on the ball, but he couldn’t hold it.

Seager hit his second homer of the game in the seventh, against Aaron Loup. He drove in two more runs against Dominic Leone in the eighth.

The Angels had a shot to get back into the game in the fifth. Eduardo Escobar and Chad Wallach had back-to-back singles and Luis Rengifo drove in a run with a two-out hit. Trailing 4-1, the Angels had Shohei Ohtani at the plate as the potential tying run. He struck out.

More to come on this story.