HOUSTON — Angels left-hander Reid Detmers got too much of the plate with an 0-and-2 fastball on Thursday night, giving up a game-tying single.
If that seems like a familiar story, it is.
The Angels have been one of the worst teams in the majors at finishing off hitters after getting ahead with strikes on the first two pitches.
Opponents have hit .210 against the Angels on 0-and-2 pitches, the highest average in the majors. The big league average is .151.
They are the second-worst team in baseball in all plate appearances that start off 0-and-2, even including those that don’t end on an 0-and-2 pitch. Opponents have hit .198 in those plate appearances, compared with the major league average of .162.
Detmers has allowed an MLB-high 10 hits on 0-and-2 pitches, but it’s been a team-wide problem.
“We actually talked about it last night after the game, trying not to be too fine,” Manager Phil Nevin said on Friday. “I’m not necessarily in the camp where you’re wasting pitches either. When you have stuff Det does, you can put guys away. There’s a difference between wasting a pitch and throwing a fastball right down the middle. We have to be a little more fine with those things, understand the situations we’re in.”
Nevin said on Friday that the issue was “addressed with the pitching staff.”
He also doesn’t want pitchers afraid of throwing a pitch that gets too much of the plate on 0-and-2.
“I don’t want them to get to 0-2 and then ‘alright, I’m going to throw one to the backstop to make sure I don’t give up a hit,’” Nevin said. “Still make a quality pitch. That’s pitching.”
Right-hander Griffin Canning said he believes the Angels “are just trying to do too much with pitches once we get to 0-2. We are getting to 0-2 pretty well.”
Angels pitchers have gotten to 0-and-2 with 22.1% of the batters they’ve faced, which is slightly better than the major league average of 21.1%.
“It’s hard to get to 0-2,” Canning said. “If we’re doing that, I like our chances of putting more guys away.”
Another factor in the Angels’ favor is that it seems they’ve been bitten by some bad luck in these situations. The batting average on balls in play against the Angels on 0-and-2 pitches is .381, compared with the major league average of .297.
The expected batting average, which is based on the quality of contact, on those 0-and-2 pitches that end at-bats is .171. That’s 39 points lower than what’s actually happened.
Some of that is bad luck and some of that is bad defense. Either way, there’s reason to believe it will improve. In the seven full years that StatCast has been tracking expected stats, only seven of 210 teams finished the season allowing a batting average that was at least 30 points worse than the expected batting average.
“There have been a lot of bloops,” catcher Matt Thaiss said. “That’s part of the game too.”
UMPIRE ANALYSIS
A day after a critical call went against the Angels, prompting many to call for an automated strike zone or more accountability for umpires, Nevin said the situation has changed from his playing days.
Nevin played from 1995-2006, and for most of that time, umpires weren’t graded at all. He cited the now legendary Atlanta Braves-Florida Marlins postseason game in 1997 in which umpire Eric Gregg routinely called strikes on pitches well outside of the zone.
“I’ll come in and guys are complaining about a pitch an inch off the plate,” Nevin said. “When I was playing, that was almost down in the middle.”
Umpires now are graded on their performance, and that impacts their assignments in the postseason.
NOTES
Nevin juggled his lineup, with Shohei Ohtani in the leadoff spot, ahead of Mike Trout. “Just to rattle the cage a little bit maybe,” Nevin said. …
Third baseman Anthony Rendon (groin) took batting practice on the field for the second day in a row. Rendon is moving toward an activation next week.
UP NEXT
Angels (LHP Patrick Sandoval, 3-4, 3.42) at Astros (RHP Cristian Javier, 6-1, 2.97), Saturday, 1:10 p.m., Bally Sports West, 830 AM
