April 20, 2017

Another day in Houston, and another loss where the Angels couldn’t get their bats going.  This time a 2-1 loss to the Astros, which gave Houston 3 victories in the 4 game set.

The Angels were victimized by the long ball in this one.  Carlos Beltran connected on a solo shot off Matt Shoemaker in the 1st inning to give the Astros a 1-0 lead.

Houston would add to that in the 5th when Jake Marisnick took Shoemaker deep to left for another solo homer, and the Astros had a 2-0 lead.

The Halos only run came in the 9th on a home run by Mike Trout.  It was his 4th of the season.

Shoemaker took the loss, his first of the year.  He went 7 innings, giving up just the 2 home runs on 3 hits, while striking out 7 Astros.  He departed after 98 pitches, then turned things over to Bud Norris who pitched a scoreless 8th inning.

However, the Astros pitching was more flawless on this day.  Lance McCullers pitched 6 2/3rd innings, delivering a 3-hit shutout in that stretch.  He improved to 2-0 on the season. 

Chris Devenski pitched the final 2 1/3rd innings to get credit for the save.  He allowed 3 hits, including the Trout homer, but stranded Cliff Pennington and Andrelton Simmons at 2nd and 3rd to end the game.  At one point he struck out 8 of 10 Angels.

The Halos now lead the majors with 25 home runs allowed.  They’ve also dropped 8 of their last 9 games to fall to 7-10 on the season.

The Angel are now headed home to open a 4-game series with the Blue Jays.  It will be Tyler Skaggs (0-1; 5.19 ERA) going for the Halos on Friday, while the Jays will deploy Mat Latos, who was just called up from Triple-A.