ANAHEIM, Calif. _ Matt Shoemaker is still searching for the results that made him one of the Angels' best starters in 2014 and 2016.
Instead, he's still languishing as the inconsistent pitcher he was in 2015.
Shoemaker gave up five runs in the Angels' 5-3 loss to the Houston Astros on Sunday afternoon.
The Angels played their second game in a row, and third in the last four, without Mike Trout, who is nursing a tight left hamstring. They have lost two of the three games without Trout.
Shoemaker saw his ERA rise to 5.21 after seven starts. This one showed some promise, and he did pitch into the seventh, but in the end the few mistakes were too costly.
Shoemaker did not allow a run through the first two innings, only the second time in seven starts he'd made it to the third before allowing a run.
In the third, he struck out two of the first three hitters, but then he walked George Springer, gave up an RBI double to Josh Reddick and then threw a pitch over the middle to Jose Altuve.
Altuve hit it out, for a three-run homer.
Shoemaker then locked down again until the seventh, when his first pitch was a hanging slider to Evan Gattis, who hit a solo homer.
Shoemaker has allowed nine homers in 38 innings this season. He's also walked 18. By contrast, in his breakthrough season in 2014, he gave up 14 homers and he walked 24 in 136 innings.
Shoemaker's few mistakes proved to be too much for the Angels' Trout-less offense to overcome.
Yunel Escobar did much of the damage with a pair of homers, including one on the first pitch of the game from Houston's Mike Fiers.
