April 17, 2017

Just when the Angels pitching starts to get a little better, their offense goes into the tank.  The Halos were shutout in Houston on Monday night by a score of 3-0.  It was their 6th straight loss, and the Angels haven’t scored a run in their last 20 innings.

Charlie Morton and three Houston relievers combined to throw a 5-hitter.  Jose Altuve drove in two runs for the Astros as well.

Jesse Chavez pitched 7 innings for the Angels, giving up only two runs on 7 hits, but he took the loss.  Yusmeiro Petit pitched the 8th inning, and gave up Altuve’s RBI double, which extended the lead to 3-0.

Altuve also had a sac fly in the 3rd inning, while Alex Bregman got the Astros on the board in the 1st inning with an RBI single.

In their last twenty innings, the Angels have generated only seven singles. In their last 46 innings, they have mustered two extra-base hits.

“It’s not ideal,” first baseman C.J. Cron said. “We haven’t been hitting like we should, like we know we can.”

The Angels also played without Albert Pujols, who decided, along with Mike Scioscia, that Monday would be a rest day.

“I think we had a bunch of good at-bats, at times, and then a couple that obviously we didn’t get it done in,” Scioscia said. “I thought we hit the ball hard a couple times with guys in scoring position. We worked some counts, had [Morton’s] pitch count up. We just left a lot of guys on base early in the game.”

The Angels and Astros will get back it tomorrow in the second game of the series.  Ricky Nolasco gets the ball for the Halos, and he’ll go up against Mike Fiers.