Los Angeles Angels third-year starter Reid Detmers is one of the most promising young players in the entire organization. He has already thrown a Major League no-hitter and has shown stretches of being a legitimate top three starter in the rotation. But a difficult night against the Houston Astros on Friday was another in a stretch of recent struggles.
Detmers lasted just 2.1 innings at Minute Maid Park, giving up seven earned runs on seven hits and three walks with zero strikeouts. It’s his second start in a row allowing seven earned runs and the third time since July 8 that he’s done so.
From the start of the season to July 2 — 82.1 innings over 15 starts — Detmers had a 3.72 ERA and 1.25 WHIP with 103 strikeouts. In the six starts since, his ERA is 10.30 and his WHIP is 1.93 with just 28 strikeouts in 25.1 innings.
Detmers, after Friday’s seven-run outing, spoke about his recent struggles and what he thinks might be a contributing factor, according to Jeff Fletcher of The O.C. Register:
“To be honest, I don’t really know,” Detmers said. “We’re just going to have some conversations about what’s going on. Obviously it’s a rough patch. Just trust the process and keep your head down and keep working, which isn’t a problem. I pride myself in trusting in the process, keep working. Obviously, I’ve had rough times before. It’s not gonna be the last time. It’s definitely frustrating. Just gotta get over this hump. I’m trying to get quick outs. Obviously, things just didn’t go my way today.”
Angels manager Phil Nevin is sympathetic to what Detmers is going through, but is confident that he’ll break out of it and return to being the talented young pitcher the Angels know they have.
“This is hurting him,” Manager Phil Nevin said. “It’s bothering him. It hurts us too. A really talented young pitcher that’s going to do great things for us for a long time that’s in a little bit of a rut right now. You feel for him for that.”
Detmers gave up five runs in the second inning and two in the third before being removed. He allowed two home runs to Jon Singleton, a player who had not hit an MLB home run since 2015.
The Angels have not made any decisions with Detmers for his next start. It’s unlikely they do anything drastic given a lack of other options, but they could theoretically skip Detmers’ next start without impacting the rotation. His next scheduled start is slated to be the day after an off day.
They could skip Detmers and continue the rotation with normal rest before turning back to the young lefty on his next turn.
Dominic Leone seeing uptick in velocity
New Angels reliever Dominic Leone has actually seen improvement in a number of ways since joining the Angels. The most apparent of which is the velocity, as he is throwing harder than he has all season long.
Leone says that nothing mechanically has changed to make him throw harder, but he’s feeling strong physically to the point where he hasn’t even noticed he’s been reaching higher speeds.
