Joe Musgrove Shuts Out Angels

Sloppy defense, non-existent offense, and a dominant performance from Musgrove puts the Angels 4 games under .500

The story of tonight has been similar to the past couple of weeks for the Angels: short stints from their starters, and an offense that could not get going.

The night started with Cooper Criswell making his MLB debut going 1 ⅓ innings and giving up 3 runs. Trouble started in the third with a one out triple by Jurickson Profar that scored two runs. A single by Marisnick led to the end of Criswell’s debut. With the current state of the largely anemic offense, this total felt insurmountable even without the additional two Padres runs coming across to score in the 5th, leaving the Halos down 5-0.

The Angels defense didn’t make things easier, committing two errors on the night, both by José Iglesias. This totaled to be his 15th error in 114 games. Before joining the Angels he had never committed more than 11 errors in an entire season.

This win snapped a 4 game skid for the Padres who have been struggling lately. They sit two games back of the second NL Wild Card behind the Cincinnati Reds. Coming into tonight they had batted just .090 (10-111), as a team, in the previous series against the Dodgers. After they scored three runs on five consecutive hits in the third inning, that was more hits than the Padres had collected in any of the three games they played against the LAD.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, the Angels, prior to today, have fared fairly well in interleague play so far this season going 9-7 (.563) in matchups this season and look to turn it around.

The Angels first hit came on an infield single in the 4th and the next came courtesy of Brandon Marsh with a line drive single up the middle with one out in the 6th but nothing came of it which seems to be the current story with Angels. They were 0-1 with RISP and left 5 on base at the end of the night.

Mike Mayers came in to relieve Packy Naughton (4.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 2 K, 2 BB) in the top of the sixth with 2 outs. With the bases loaded, Jo Adell made a run saving catch in shallow right field that kept the score the same.

The real story of the night was Padres starter Joe Musgrove who pitched a complete game shutout, allowing just 3 hits (all singles) with 9 strikeouts, and 0 walks. He silenced the struggling Angels as they loose their third straight and fall 14 games behind in the AL West and 11 games back of the second Wild Card spot. José Suarez (5-7. 4.06 ERA) goes against Ryan Weathers (4-6, 5.27 ERA) tomorrow at 6:07 PM PT.

Angels News and Notes:

• Janson Junk, acquired in the Andrew Heaney trade, took a perfect game into the ninth inning and struck out 8 with the Rocket City Trash Pandas tonight
• ICYMI: Patrick Sandoval is out for the season with a stress fracture in his lower back
• Shohei Ohtani’s next start is scheduled for Tuesday against the Yankees