ANAHEIM, Calif._Until Albert Pujols hits his 600th career home run, the Angels' games will consist of an odd cadence. Everything is a buildup to the 37-year-old designated hitter's next plate appearance. All else is superfluous.
But such a structure will more often than not produce nothing of note. And, on Friday night at Angel Stadium, the assembled fans rose for Pujols' chances four times, sat down without a word four times, and left unhappy as the Angels lost a laugher, 11-5, to the Minnesota Twins.
Following a respite in his previous start, in Miami, JC Ramirez's season-long first-inning struggles returned. After Robbie Grossman hit a one-out double, Ramirez threw a 3-and-1 fastball down the middle and Joe Mauer lifted it 399 feet, far enough to clear the wall in left-center field.
Ramirez encountered further trouble in the third inning, when Brian Dozier singled and Grossman launched a two-run homer to right field. Mauer lined out, but Miguel Sano singled and Max Kepler drilled another two-run homer to right.
Ramirez remained in the game for two more innings. He exited when his seventh run scored on a hit-by-pitch and two singles in the fifth. He had only made nine major league starts before Friday night, but this was by far the worst of them. Twice he had allowed five runs, but never more, and he had never failed to finish five innings. His earned-run average rose from 3.38 to 4.11, but it remains the best of any Angels starting pitcher this season.
Yusmeiro Petit replaced him and finished the fifth and sixth with alacrity. Deolis Guerra entered for the seventh and permitted four runs on four singles, a double, and a wild pitch. Rookie Keynan Middleton picked up the relief chain with two outs in the eighth and logged his eighth consecutive scoreless appearance.
Middleton is the only reliever in the Angels' current bullpen who can be freely optioned to the minor leagues, and the club may soon remove one reliever when Cam Bedrosian is activated. But Middleton is making the prospect it will be him increasingly unlikely.
The Angels (28-30) faced Twins right-hander Kyle Gibson, a sinker specialist who took with him to the mound a ghastly 7.85 ERA. At first, it looked like it could, too, rise.
Andrelton Simmons led off with a single up the middle. Kole Calhoun next popped a ball up down the third-base line. He thought it was bound for foul territory, but it was not. It landed fair for a single, but Simmons tried for third and was thrown out. Pujols next struck out and Yunel Escobar grounded out.
The Angels strung together their first rally in the sixth. Eric Young Jr. led it off with a double, Simmons walked, and Calhoun slapped a single to center field. That scored one run and set runners at the corners for Pujols. He grounded into a double play on the second pitch he saw, scoring a second run. Up next, Escobar pounced on a changeup low in the zone, doubling to left field. Luis Valbuena's walk produced Gibson's exit, but Martin Maldonado flied out against reliever Alex Wimmers, and the Angels' offense produced little else.
Pujols struck out twice, grounded into the run-scoring double play, and grounded out again without anyone on base. He has come up empty in 15 chances since he registered No. 599.
It was, altogether, a night the Angels will want to forget. Perhaps the only thing they will seek to remember occurred before the game, when their reliever Blake Parker beat Twins reserve infielder Eduardo Escobar in an annual cow-milking contest behind home plate.
Parker later pitched the ninth inning, when Minnesota's lead was nine runs. Escobar pinch-hit and struck out against his adversary.
