The Los Angeles Angels began their six-game road trip on Friday with a 7-0 cruise against the Boston Red Sox. Taylor Ward carried the bulk of the offensive load with a homer and three RBI, but it was Reid Detmers that starred. The Angels starter has dealt in each of his first three starts, but Friday may have marked his best of the season thus far.
Detmers tossed 98 pitches over 6.1 scoreless innings. He allowed three hits and two walks while striking out seven. He gave up only two batted balls at over 100 miles per hour and both resulted in outs. But what was very telling about the kind of pitcher Detmers os hoping to be this season is that he did not feel good going into the day. In fact, both he and catcher Logan O’Hoppe felt his stuff wasn’t sharp in pregame warmups.
By the end, he had retired 14 of his last 16 batters faced, striking out three of the final five batters. Detmers spoke about the mindset as he worked through his start, according to Jeff Fletcher of The O.C. Register:
“I was fighting myself a little bit,” Detmers said, “but I worked between innings and figured it out slowly and by the end of the game I had all my stuff back. You’re going to have days like that. This offseason I figured out some stuff, and if I do have struggles, I can go back to that and get back on track.”
O’Hoppe discussed what he saw from Detmers both before and during the 6.1-inning shutout.
“In his pregame bullpen, his stuff wasn’t there as much as it was at the end of the outing,” O’Hoppe said. “Obviously in the first inning, I thought it got much better, but he really figured it out. And then he was able to settle in and be the guy who was the starts before.”
Detmers is now 3-0 on the season with a 1.04 ERA, 0.808 WHIP, a MLB-leading 1.46 fielding-independent pitching (FIP), an American League-leading 26 strikeouts and a MLB-best 13.5 strikeouts per nine innings in 17.1 total frames.
Reid Detmers strikes out 12 vs. Red Sox
Detmers has now faced the Red Sox in two of his three starts, and in his previous one at Angel Stadium on April 6, he struck out 12 batters while giving up only one of his two earned runs on the season. It has been an incredible start for the fourth-year former first-rounder.