WASHINGTON — The young core of the Angels’ offense had an off night all at once.
Although Jo Adell hit a second-inning two-run homer, he and the other young hitters who have been carrying the Angels lately all came up empty in numerous opportunities late in the Angels’ 3-2, 10-inning loss to the Washington Nationals on Friday night.
José Soriano left with a one-run lead after six innings, but José Quijada gave up the tying run in the eighth and Matt Moore was charged with the winning run in the 10th. The Nationals bunted their automatic runner to third against Moore, and then Ben Joyce gave up the game-winning hit on a line drive that second baseman Luis Guillorme couldn’t handle.
It shouldn’t have gotten to that, though.
Nolan Schanuel, Zach Neto and Logan O’Hoppe – now holding the top three spots in the order – combined to go hitless in 15 at-bats. Neto and Schanuel are both coming off big series, but O’Hoppe is now is in a 2-for-32 slump.
All three came up empty with runners in scoring position in the seventh. Adell needed to just hit a fly ball to get the Angels an insurance run in the eighth, but he struck out.
The Angels were 1 for 13 with runners in scoring position, with their only run coming on Adell’s homer in the second inning. Adell had two runners on in each of his next three trips, and he went hitless.
The Angels also had three cracks at getting their automatic runner home in the 10th, and they couldn’t do it.
The Angels could probably just shrug it off as a bad night after they scored 17 runs while winning their previous two games against the Yankees in New York.
It wasted solid pitching from Soriano, who gave up one run. He struck out seven, and retired the last nine hitters he faced.
Although Soriano gave up a run and had to deal with some traffic, that was more because of sloppy infield defense by his teammates and the speed of the Nationals.
Three of the singles that Soriano allowed were on ground balls hit too slowly for the Angels’ infielders to throw out the runners at first.
Soriano also induced a ground ball that should have been a routing inning-ending double play in the first, but second baseman Michael Stefanic booted it. That led to the Nationals’ only run against him. It was an earned run because the official scorer can’t assume a double play.
By the time Soriano’s night was over, he had gotten eight of his outs on ground balls.
More to come on this story.