The Los Angeles Angels entered their weekend series against the Houston Astros knowing the well-documented struggles they’ve had facing them in the past couple seasons. That included a 3-7 record this year heading into the series. And manager Phil Nevin’s team has continued that trend of faltering with the Astros on the other side.
The first two games of the series have seen the Astros defeat the Angels 11-3 in both outings. Starting pitchers Tyler Anderson and Reid Detmers have given up a combined 14 earned runs in seven innings of work. The offense has struggled against Astros pitching. Virtually nothing has gone right for a Halos team that desperately needed victories.
Nevin was blunt in his assessment of the Angels’ performance against the Astros and issued a challenge to the team heading into the series finale on Sunday, according to Jeff Fletcher of The O.C. Register:
“They’re good,” Manager Phil Nevin said. “They’ve certainly had our number. Absolutely. It’s no fun coming into one place and getting beat, but we’ve got a big one tomorrow. The last time we were here (in June) we got it handed to us the first few days and came out and played a good ballgame and won 2-1 on Sunday.”
The Angels are now 3-9 against the Astros this season, and although they managed to keep things close in the score column through the first 10 matchups, it has been all Houston this weekend. The 16-run aggregate deficit is their second-worst two-game stretch of the season, with a 17-run margin on May 6 and 7 against the Texas Rangers acting as the worst.
A win in the series finale on Sunday would not only keep the Angels above water in the standings, it might provide some momentum heading into another big American League West showdown with the Rangers.
Detmers figuring out struggles
The Angels’ promising young starter has been in one of the most difficult stretches of his early career to this point. He has an ERA above 10.00 in his last six starts and gave up seven earned runs in 2.1 innings against the Astros on Friday.
He spoke about the struggles he’s been having, saying he doesn’t know the root cause. Instead, he sees it as a rough patch that he simply needs to work through by trusting the process that got him to this point. It’s unclear if the Angels will take any action like optioning him to Triple-A or skipping a scheduled start to help get him back on track.
