ANAHEIM, Calif. _ For a few moments Friday night, no one was sure what had occurred to a ball lined off the bat of Tampa Bay Rays hitter Jesus Aguilar.
It might have landed in the glove of Angels outfielder Brian Goodwin, who chased the ball all the way to the center-field wall and leaped to catch it. It might have cleared the fence cleanly.
It was hard to know for sure until Goodwin landed upright on the warning track without either glove or ball and shook his head. That was when an umpire wagged his finger to signal a home run, Aguilar accelerated his slow jog around the bases into a real trot and an Angel Stadium employee scrambled into the empty space in front of the rock pile to retrieve Goodwin's glove.
The Angels trailed only by three runs at that point in the third inning. It was not an insurmountable lead, and Kole Calhoun proved it 10 minutes later, hitting his 30th home run to cut the deficit to one. But after starter Andrew Heaney gave up his third homer of the third inning to erase the quaint lead his teammates had given him, the Angels seemed doomed to a fifth straight loss anyway.
Mike Trout was missing from the lineup for the sixth straight game because of nerve irritation in his right foot, Shohei Ohtani was home recovering from a surgery on his left knee patella and Justin Upton sat out because of a knee injury that cut short his season.
Calhoun tried to make up for the absence of his team's most powerful bats, slamming a solo shot in the eighth to extend his career-high in home runs to 31. His efforts were mostly useless in an 11-4 loss.
Heaney, whose 3.28 ERA and 46 strikeouts in six starts before Friday's were the best marks among Angels pitchers with more than 20 innings since Aug. 1, stumbled through 31/3 innings. He gave up six runs, four of them on the three homers in the third and two in the fourth, and struck out only four. He retired all three batters in the second but put multiple Rays on base in every other inning he pitched.
Had it not been for Calhoun throwing a runner out at the plate to end the first, Heaney (4-5) might not have put up zeroes in the first two innings.
Four relievers followed Heaney, and all gave up at least one earned run.
Heaney's troubles allowed Tampa Bay starter Charlie Morton (15-6) to settle into a groove after allowing an RBI single to Luis Rengifo in the second, which drove in Albert Pujols after his leadoff double, and hanging a 94-mph fastball for Calhoun to crush in the third.
Morton retired the final nine Angels he faced in an efficient three-run, six-inning outing. He did enough for the Rays to remain in second place in the American League wild-card standings.
The Angels, meanwhile, were left to ponder if the final 14 games would play out similarly to Friday's drubbing if they are to play down the stretch without their most potent bats.
