José Soriano allows 7 runs in 4th inning as Angels lose to Rays
ANAHEIM — For the past three months, Angels pitcher José Soriano has been on a rollercoaster ride of extremes.
The right-hander has started 13 games in that span, allowing two runs or fewer in eight of them and five runs or more in the others.
In three of the bad ones, he’s allowed at least seven runs, including a rough start in the Angels’ 7-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday night.
“I don’t think there’s any issues,” Soriano said through an interpreter. “This is baseball. One day you can be the best and the next day you can be the worst. This is baseball.”
This game was essentially a microcosm of the season for Soriano. He started with three hitless innings, getting the Rays to hit one harmless ground ball after another.
In the fourth, though, he needed 33 pitches to get three outs, and he gave up seven runs on seven hits.
There were hard-hit balls, like Brandon Lowe’s two-run homer, and two other hits with exit velocities of 100 mph or harder.
And there were softly hit balls that found holes, and a chopper that was hit too high for second baseman Christian Moore to make a play.
There was even a squeeze bunt that Soriano fielded and then flipped home, although not accurately enough to get an out.
“The first three innings, the stuff was as good as we’ve seen all year,” interim manager Ray Montgomery said. “And I personally expected that to just kind of continue. Here we go, low pitch count. I think he threw (32) to that point, and I think he threw (33) in (the fourth). When you have that kind of stuff, you want to see him get through there, and you want to see him make pitches to get out of it, and just didn’t happen.”
Montgomery said the pitch selection might be an issue when Soriano is having trouble stopping a big inning.
“You gotta be a little less stubborn on some of the pitches, right?” Montgomery said. “He’s got options. Sinker, four-seamer. He’s got the split. He’s got the curveball. He’s got lots of options to go through. It’s just staying in the moment and going to what might be maybe a better choice in the situation.”
Despite the poor results, the Angels (55-59) didn’t get anyone warming up in the bullpen until after Soriano had allowed six runs.
The nightmarish inning spoiled a three-game stretch in which Soriano had posted a 2.25 ERA, seemingly getting his season back on track after some shaky performances in the first half of July. Soriano now has a 4.01 ERA after 24 starts, which is up from the 3.42 mark he posted during his encouraging first season as a starter. He pitched only 113 innings last season, and he’s already up to 137 this year.
“I feel great,” Soriano said. “I feel healthy. I think I can keep going.”
The Angels have given no indication that they plan to limit his workload, although it would be reasonable to continue asking the question if the Angels are not in the race in September.
Besides Soriano’s poor performance, the ugliest moment of the night was provided by third base coach Bo Porter.
The Angels didn’t have a hit against Rays starter Ryan Pepiot through the first four innings, but they started getting to him in the fifth. Taylor Ward reached on an error and then Jo Adell hit a two-run homer. Logan O’Hoppe walked and then Moore split the right-center field gap with a line drive that went to the wall.
Porter waved O’Hoppe home. The Rays made two good throws, and O’Hoppe was out by a few feet. Porter’s decision went against the baseball tenet that you never make the first out of an inning at home plate. The decision was even more egregious because the Angels were down by five runs.
The Angels kept hitting Pepiot, including Oswald Peraza’s infield hit in the fifth and two hits and a walk in the sixth. They might have gotten back into the game if they hadn’t given away that out.
“The inning would have been a lot different,” Montgomery said. “I talked to (Porter) right after. The first thing he said was, ‘It was a bad send.’ It was a bad send. It can’t happen in that situation, given who’s running right there. Bo certainly knew it. We’ve all made mistakes in that situation too, and we’ll talk about it. Again, the momentum swing. It’s a big play.”
Angels star went 1 for 4 with three strikeouts, his seventh straight game with two or more strikeouts. That’s the longest such streak of his career.