ANAHEIM, Calif. — Time after time again this season, promising starts for Angels pitcher Jose Suarez have turned into clunkers in the blink of an eye. With one missed location, one ill-advised pitch selection, smooth outings could go completely off the rails.
It’s the reason why Suarez dragged a 5.53 ERA in nine starts this season into Saturday’s game against the Texas Rangers, despite some strong individual efforts. And after he cruised through the first three innings, trouble arose in the middle innings as Texas strung hits together.
But Suarez did something he’s sometimes struggled with in his young career: He kept his composure. And as he continued to pound away at the strike zone through all nine innings, he held the Rangers to a single run in a dominant complete-game performance to lead the Angels to a 4-1 victory.
Of course, it sure helps with run support when the leading candidate for the American League Most Valuable Player award, well, plays like the leading candidate.
In the top of the sixth inning with a 1-0 lead, two-way star Shohei Ohtani stepped to the plate with runners on first and second against Rangers starter Kolby Allard. He was fresh off a 117-pitch outing the night before, and Angels manager Joe Maddon said the workload “might’ve been heavy.”
But did Ohtani want a day off? No way.
“I’m thinking to myself, ‘OK, seven innings, 117 pitches, 100 a miles an hour … you’ve got to be, like, really sore today,’” Maddon said pregame. “And without hesitation, he wanted to be back out there.”
Ohtani has demonstrated time and time again this season that maladies such as soreness are the problems of mere mortals. He delivered the stuff of legends again Thursday, obliterating a first-pitch offering from Allard into the right-field seats for a three-run homer that sent Angel Stadium into a Saturday night fever.
As he assumed his customary high stance in his next at-bat in the eighth inning, chants of “M-V-P!” rang out among the crowd, nearly as loud as the fireworks that exploded into the night sky after his home run. To cap off his night, Ohtani singled into right field and proceeded to try to steal second. He would’ve been safe if not for an aggressive slide that took his foot off the bag.
As it turned out, however, Suarez’s performance would’ve held up perfectly fine with a one-run lead. Through the first three innings, he dissected Texas’s offense with surgical efficiency, throwing just 30 pitches without allowing a single hit, walk or run. He challenged Rangers hitters with a variety of well-placed four-seamers, then utilized a devastating changeup as a strikeout pitch — three of his four strikeouts across the frames came via the off-speed.
In the top of the fourth with a one-run lead, Rangers leadoff hitter Leody Tavares finally got ahold of a Suarez fastball, driving a double into the left-center field gap. With one out, Suarez wheeled for a pickoff attempt and threw the ball into center field to advance Tavares to third.
The ill-fated pickoff attempt was fresh on his mind, and slugger Adolis Garcia was stepping to the plate. Things looked as if they could go south in a hurry.
Then Suarez set Garcia down on three pitches — the last a filthy changeup — and pumped three challenge fastballs, each more confident than the last, right past the swinging bat of Rangers leftfielder D.J. Peters.
He wriggled out of another jam in the fifth inning, after first baseman Nathaniel Lowe blooped a single into left field and third baseman Charlie Culberson tapped a roller into a dead spot on the infield.
With runners on first and second and one out, Suarez reared back and induced two flyouts, the second of which was a fantastic sliding catch by Phil Gosselin in left field.
Gosselin, ironically, was tabbed to start the game at first base in a day off for Jared Walsh. But minutes before game time, it was announced that planned left fielder Justin Upton would be scratched with back pain, inducing Maddon to insert Walsh at first and move Gosselin.
Upton has struggled mightily since returning from a lower back injury in late July, hitting .130 in that stretch. It is unclear if the pain is related to his previous injury.
From there, Suarez mowed through the Rangers without a hitch. With an 0-2 count to Garcia and two outs in the bottom of the sixth, he unleashed a high fastball to whiff the outfielder again. It marked the longest start of his career.
From there, Suarez cruised before allowing an RBI groundout in the ninth inning. Despite losing the shutout, he closed out the first complete game of his career, turning away after the final out and unleashing a two-handed fist pump in celebration.
It was the finest performance of his career, and one where — perhaps for the first time — he never once looked fazed.
It was only a little over a month ago that Jack Mayfield was just a guy happy to have a second chance with the Angels. Now he’s reached cult-hero status.
