ATLANTA — It took seven minutes in the sixth inning for the Angels to go from a two-run lead to a five-run deficit, on their way to a nightmarish loss.
Just moments after second baseman Christian Moore left the game with an injury suffered while diving for a ground ball, Ryan Zeferjahn gave up the first of two homers in a 16-pitch disaster, sending the Angels to an 8-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday night.
Moore, the Angels’ top hitting prospect, dove to his right to try to field a ground ball and came up writhing in pain, holding his left thumb. The initial diagnosis was “irritation” in his thumb, but Moore was taken for tests after the game.
Just as Moore was walking off the field with a trainer, interim manager Ray Montgomery went to the mound to replace starter Yusei Kikuchi with Zeferjahn.
The Angels had a 2-0 lead and Kikuchi was at 100 pitches after allowing back-to-back two-out singles. Braves catcher Sean Murphy, who had struck out twice against Kikuchi, was stepping to the plate.
Montgomery said the heat and the fact that Kikuchi had worked out of a 29-pitch jam in the first inning led him to believe that he shouldn’t push him to try to get out of this jam in the sixth.
“We just felt that was a good time to go to the ’pen,” Montgomery said, “and obviously we didn’t get it done.”
Kikuchi said he was hoping to stay in the game.
“Obviously I wanted to finish the inning there,” Kikuchi said through his interpreter. “I gave up back-to-back hits and I was around 100 pitches so I was OK with the decision.”
It took just one pitch for the decision to backfire. Zeferjahn started Murphy with a cutter over the middle of the plate, and he hit a three-run homer.
Zeferjahn gave up a first-pitch single and then he issued back-to-back walks. Each of the walks came on just five pitches.
“It was quick in terms of balls in play and the speed at which their at-bats went and the contact quality and stuff like that,” Montgomery said.
The Angels could have pulled Zeferjahn with the bases loaded and the game still 3-2, after the second straight walk. Hunter Strickland began warming up, but they couldn’t get him in quickly enough.
Zeferjahn’s second pitch to Matt Olson was a fastball over the inner half, and Olson hit a grand slam.
At that point, Zeferjahn had thrown just 14 pitches. He threw two more, allowing another hit, before Montgomery finally got Strickland to the mound.
“Probably the first time all year I haven’t had anything out there,” Zeferjahn said. “Sometimes when some things are lacking, I have something to pick me up. But tonight, I didn’t. Started from the first pitch. Right pitch, just missed execution.”
Zeferjahn, who is in second major league season, has at times been one of the Angels’ reliable high-leverage relievers. He’s also endured a few meltdowns.
He has now suffered five blown saves in 37 outings, with a 6.19 ERA. He’s walked 19 in 32 innings.
“He’s certainly feeling it,” Montgomery said. “He knows. He’s trying to grind through it, just like we’re trying to get him through it. I still have a lot of confidence in him, and I know he’s working on stuff. So we’re gonna have to keep doing what we need to do to figure him out, and he’s gonna have to do what he needs to do to figure it out.”
Zeferjahn said his confidence remains intact.
“I’m the same guy every time out there,” Zeferjahn said. “It’s just not going my way. Tomorrow, I’m going to come in the same. Same thing every day. Work on a few things. See if the coaches or video guys see a few things that I could change. Tweak a little bit. And go from there. I outing can get you right back on track, so I’m going to come in tomorrow ready to go.”
Zeferjahn’s performance spoiled a night when the Angels (42-43) were once again poised to go over .500 for the first time since April. They’ve lost the next game each of the four times they’ve gotten to .500 since they last slipped under more than two months ago. Three of those have come in the past week and a half.
“Everybody knows what’s at stake,” Montgomery said. “They want to get over that hump, so to speak, too. We just can’t seem to find the right time and the right place to get over it. But we will. I’m confident we’ll continue to get after it. We’ll be fine.”
The Angels erased an ugly loss on Sunday with a shutout victory on Tuesday, and they were heading toward another on Wednesday.
Kikuchi blanked the Braves on four hits through the first five innings. His pitch count climbed early in the game, though, which is why he was at 100 after allowing the two singles in the sixth.
The Angels didn’t provide him much of a cushion, with the hitters going silent after Jo Adell’s two-run single in the first until Jorge Soler hit a solo homer in the ninth, the 200th of his career.