HOUSTON — The Angels were already having a bad week. It got a lot worse Saturday afternoon.
Center fielder Mike Trout was out of the lineup for a second consecutive day because of a bruised elbow. Starting pitcher Griffin Canning lasted just 2 1/3 innings, surrendering six runs. The lineup mustered only five hits, even after Houston Astros starter Jake Odorizzi exited the game in the first inning because of an injury.
And for the first time this season, the Angels fell below .500, dropping their fourth straight game in a 16-2 blowout at Minute Maid Park.
“I just walked by a garbage can. [Today’s game] is already in there,” manager Joe Maddon said, eager to move on from an afternoon in which little went right.
The Angels fell to 9-10 and are moving in reverse with key hitters missing from their lineup. Maddon had initially hoped that Trout, who suffered his injury on a hit-by-pitch Thursday, would be able to return for Saturday’s game. The manager has also been waiting to get catcher Max Stassi, outfielder Juan Lagares and third baseman Anthony Rendon off the injured list.
But none of them were available Saturday, leaving the Angels with an uphill grind that got a lot steeper after Canning’s short start.
The Astros (10-10) hit the right-hander hard from the start. In the first inning, Carlos Correa clobbered a towering leadoff home run to left field, then the Astros scored two more runs on two singles and a walk. After a clean second inning from Canning, he failed to get out of the third, surrendering a single, a double and a three-run home run to Alex Bregman before recording his first out.
Canning finished the day having yielded six runs, six hits and two walks. He struck out three, and his season ERA rose to 8.40. He threw a first-pitch strike to only two of 14 batters. And seven of the nine balls the Astros put in play had an exit velocity of 97 mph or higher.
Canning believed his biggest problem was a lack of command and feel on his normally dependable slider. Of the 14 times he threw the pitch, only three went for strikes (not including balls in play). In his at-bat against Bregman, he missed with two sliders before leaving a third over the plate that Bregman slugged for a homer to left.
“I probably felt like I had my best stuff of the year in the bullpen before the game, for whatever that’s worth,” Canning said. “But once I got out there, I didn’t have that feel.”
An overworked bullpen didn’t fare much better. Junior Guerra was charged with four runs — three earned — in one inning. Steve Cishek gave up three runs in 1 1/3 innings. If not for Ben Rowen, who ate up 2 1/3 innings and surrendered only one run in a 52-pitch outing, the score might have been even more lopsided.
In the last six days, Angels relievers have thrown 22 1/3 innings.
“It’s difficult,” Maddon said, adding: “That’s why I’m singing [Rowen’s] praises. He really has saved us. … What he did today puts us in a position to win the game tomorrow.”
There was a brief moment in Saturday’s game when the Angels looked capable of rallying, pulling back to within 3-2 thanks to solo home runs from Albert Pujols in the second inning (the 666th of his career, 62 of which have come against the Astros) and Shohei Ohtani in the third.
After that, however, the lineup went silent, failing to get a runner into scoring position for the rest of the game. Astros reliever Kent Emanuel pitched the final 8 2/3 innings after Odorizzi was forced out of the game because of forearm tightness after he retired David Fletcher, the game’s first batter. Making his major league debut, Emanuel struck out five without issuing a walk.
In the bottom of the eighth, the Angels needed catcher Anthony Bemboom — who was a midgame replacement for Justin Upton in left field — to pitch. Because the team was out of healthy position players, Ohtani volunteered to play left field, making his first appearance at any position on the field other than pitcher for the first time in his big league career. He borrowed Upton’s glove during the inning.
It was a lone moment of levity.
The rest of the day served as a new low point for an Angels team going through its first lull of the year.
