Angels blanked behind Detmers' control issues

TORONTO – The Los Angeles Angels played their first game of the series against the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday, and they seem to have left their bats back in Anaheim.

The Blue Jays came away with the 2-0 victory in a game where both teams had just nine hits between them and the only offense in the game at all, Toronto's two runs, both came in the third inning. 

The Angels mustered up six hits in the game, double the knocks that the Blue Jays had, but they were unable to turn any of those hits into runs, going 0-5 with runners in scoring position. 

The Angels also failed to earn a single walk in the entire game, a credit to the kind of game that the Toronto pitching staff had, especially ace Dylan Cease, who started the game and earned his third win of the season.

The bullpen shines

Despite the lack of offense, the game was an overall pitching clinic for the Angeles, who have at least seemed to find a rhythm, especially in the bullpen.

Reid Detmers was on the bump for the Angels and while he suffered command issues, he turned in a solid performance, though he was pulled after less than four innings. Detmers went 3.2 innings and allowed just two earned runs while giving up just two hits, though he did issue six free passes to the Blue Jays.

Those walks were especially costly in the third inning when Detmers allowed two walks, a hit and a sacrifice fly that led to the only two runs of the game to come across. Detmersd was pulled less than an inning later after his command issues led to him racking up 99 pitches, only 56 of which were strikes.

What was encouraging to see from the game despite the walks was the performance from the Angels' bullpen, which has been the biggest point of struggle for the team this season. 

A lineup of José Fermin, Brent Suter, Kirby Yates and Alek Manoah combined for 4.1 innings and allowed just one hit while striking out six and allowing zero walks, to contrast with Detmers' issues with free passes. 

At different points this season, separate aspects of the Angels as a whole have showed major improvements, but the team has rarely been able to bring solid performances from the whole team together at once. 

Friday night was one of those cases and now the Angels prepare to reload for Saturday.