Nightmare first inning buries Angels
Jack Janes
Host · Writer
LOS ANGELES — It got very ugly, very quickly, on Saturday night at Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium.
After a short two-out rally that yielded a run in the top of the first inning, the Angels imploded in the bottom half of the inning and allowed nine runs, with four of them coming before an out was even recorded, in their 9-2 loss against the Dodgers.
"They just put me in some tough spots, definitely, and I wasn't able to work out of them," right-hander Jack Kochanowicz said. "I made a lot of pitches that I think were really well-executed pitches, and they're a really good baseball team. They got to me."
Kochanowicz didn’t have his best stuff in this one. He allowed the first six Dodgers batters to record a hit, with four of them coming with two strikes.
Shohei Ohtani leadoff the inning with a chopper to second that he beat out for an infield single. Kochanowicz then left a 2-2 changeup down the middle to Andy Pages, who hit it into the Dodgers’ bullpen for a two-run homer.
Freddie Freeman hit a sharp two-strike single, and then Mookie Betts and Max Muncy each had softly hit singles to load the bases for Ryan Ward, who scored another two runs with a double off the left field wall.
Kochanowicz got six batters to a two-strike count, but he only got one of them out.
"I think it was just working through some stuff, body-wise, and I think just really getting those swing and miss non-fastballs is really where I need to dial it in," Kochanowicz said. He clarified that "body-wise" meant his mechanics, not anything injury-related.
Kochanowicz finally recorded his first and only out of his evening by striking out Alex Call, but he walked Dalton Rushing, and that was the end of the line for him. He left with the bases loaded and only one out.
The Angels brought in left-hander Brent Suter to try to stop the bleeding, but it didn’t work.
Suter got Alex Freeland to hit a ground ball into the five-six hole, but Zach Neto threw it into right field trying to turn a double play, which cleared the bases. Ohtani followed that up by promptly clubbing a two-run home run.
Pages and Freeman grounded out afterwards to finally put an end to the inning.
When the dust settled, nine runs were scored, with seven of them being tagged on Kochanowicz, with six of them earned.
Kochanowicz has now allowed 29 earned runs in 22 ⅔ innings pitched in his last six starts, which is good for an 11.51 ERA. His season ERA is now 6.05.
"We'll talk about it, see what our options are," Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said of Kochanowicz staying in the rotation. "He's obviously struggling a little bit, but at the same time, the stuff looked like it was still there. It's just to find a way to get him executing pitches and keep developing that."
Once the first inning was settled, everything settled down.
The Angels failed to get another baserunner after the first inning until Neto's solo home run off the foul pole in the ninth inning, as they failed to solve right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
The Dodgers were also held scoreless the rest of the game, in part because of an impressive MLB debut from left-hander Samy Natera Jr.
The 26-year-old held the Dodgers scoreless and hitless in two innings of work with three strikeouts out of the bullpen, with his only blemish being a walk.
"Samy looked great," Suzuki said. "He was throwing hard. Threw strikes, and to go two innings like that against that team, it was good. He looked like he was pretty composed out there, too. It looked like nothing was really getting to him and attacking his own."
